The Snotzenexer Trilogy
by Dave
Summary: An Imperial Admiral uses Cold War tactics to dismantle the Republic and place himself in command.
1. Return of the Empire

Return of the Empire

by David Pontier

[dpontier@hotmail.com][1]

[Homepage][2]

Prologe

The alley was dark, and the man didn't know he was being watched. He was wearing black pants with boots that went up past his ankles and disappeared beneath his clothes. His shirt was dark, but the exact color could not be determined in the limited light - perhaps a dark blue or even black. His attire was such that seen in this dark alley it was obvious that he was trying to remain as invisible as possible, but not so out of the ordinary that it would draw attention to himself on the street in daylight. As was the case here, in the dead of night, he was obviously trying to remain unseen by as many people as possible. Luckily for him, he wasn't totally invisible.

"Sting?" The man stiffened visibly at the name, but recovered quickly, not wanting his unseen contact to know how much he had startled him. "Sting?" the voice said again, and he was able to locate the general direction of the speaker. He stared into the darkness intently and nearly jumped backwards when a form emerged from the shadows only two meters in front of his nose. "Sting?" the man asked for a third time.

Sting swallowed the hard lump of fear that had jumped into his throat, and took a second or two to insure his voice wouldn't crack. He didn't know why this young man struck fear into him so quickly and completely, but the simple way he had hide himself in the shadows so near to him, unnerved Sting to no end. "Blade, I assume?"

"Blade" nodded. He hated the sound of the name, but if they were going to use names like "Striker" and "Sting" then he felt entitled to one too. Besides, his real name wasn't important.

Sting looked down at the hard, leather satchel in Blade's right hand. "I also assume that that is the package we are expecting." Blade nodded again, not wishing to waste words in response to such a stupid question. "You have done very well. May I?" he added gesturing toward the satchel.

Blade scowled in the dark at his associate. He didn't appreciate being treated like a kid, having to be told he had done well. In appearance his 27 years seemed to be closer to 17, yet in reality, he had enough experience in life to warrant the addition of another decade rather than the subtraction of the ten years. Blade held the case in two hands at chest level so that Sting could open it. Sting paused only briefly before opening the satchel, making sure the light level in the alley was sufficiently low and that no unexpected headlights would illuminate the dead end in the near future. The five kilos of spice inside the case were usually sold by the gram, and the whole batch would be ruined if they were exposed anything more than a dim glow. Blade watched as Sting showed even less control than the delivery boy had expected and nearly drooled with excitement. Quite inappropriately, Sting's greedy fingers snatched up one of the four-gram pouches, opened it, and pinched himself a small sample. Blade watched as the undisciplined man put the small portion of the drug on the middle of his tongue and closed his mouth slowly. Sting gritted his left rear molar and a small flash of light illuminated his closed cheek. Blade watched the man's eye's roll back in pleasure and then glaze over as the drug took control of his every sense, heightening them to his surroundings.

It was then that Blade remembered of the drug's empathic abilities. With the security of his mission at stake, Blade tried to focus his thoughts on one thing. A slow smile spread across Sting's lips as the drug began to wear off, and his senses slowly climbed down the ladder on which they had been previously so precariously balanced. "You'll get your money," Sting said, reading his supplier's mind, "and for this batch, maybe a bonus."

Blade closed the satchel and returned it to his side. He was glad his superiors had trusted him enough to supply him with the real thing instead of the colored sugar they had originally prepared for him. It was the possibility of this kind of preliminary tasting of which he had been able to convince them, and thus, saved his own skin from detection.

"This being your third act of service for our organization, the chief thought it best if he gave you the payment himself." Blade's professionalism allowed him to keep every ounce of excitement that he felt inwardly from showing. "However, security is always a big deal, so, if you'll follow me, I'll take you there."

Blade understood what his associate meant by security when Sting led him to an air car that was parked several blocks away. The two men got in the back of the vehicle, and Blade found that all of the windows were opaque from both the outside and the inside. The driver of the air car had a separate compartment up front, and as soon as both men were in the car, he took off.

Blade had an incredible sense of direction and thought he had the general directions figured out each time the car made a turn, but he had no idea how fast they were going. After ten minutes of ridding in silence, the car began to slow down. Blade prepared himself to disembark, confidant that he knew the general location of this secret base. Instead of coming to a halt, Blade felt the car climbing a minor gradient into an enclosure that amplified the outside engine noise. The car came to a stop, but Blade had a feeling that the ride wasn't over. Within seconds a new form of motion made itself known to Blade's sensitive inner ear.

"We're going up?" Blade asked his silent companion but got mere indifference as a response. Blade gave up trying to follow this new motion path and tried to evaluate his traveling companion. He was definitely just a peon, thinking that he was more important than he was. Blade had a good guess that if this Chief found out that Sting had taken a sample of spice prematurely, Sting would find out just how high he ranked in this organization. Unfortunately, four grams in a batch of five thousand, was not likely to be missed.

Blade had worked for a month to gain a slight bit of trust from this organization, and in the past few weeks he had bent more than a few rules of his own organization to keep it. Blade's superiors, however, tended to view all of Blade's assignments in a purely pragmatic light, knowing that the over aggressive youth had his own tactics, and they didn't want to change something with a hundred percent success rate. Now, a month and a half after initial contact, he was going to meet with the big cheese. His superiors had expected three months minimum.

The new craft they were in began to slow noticeably, and Blade's stomach told him they were descending. The landing lasted only a few minutes, and the air car backed out of its transport, allowing the two occupants to exit. The wind was a lot stronger than Blade had remembered. A quick look around at his new surroundings gave him the answer immediately. They were on an island surrounded by water as far as the eye could see. The wind forced the waves into pounding surf that ricocheted spray off the large rocks surrounding this side of the small island. Blade hazarded a look up to check the stars, but there was heavy cloud cover. For all he knew, they could be on the other side of the globe, save for the fact it was still night.

"Come with me," Sting said as he began walking toward a large building on the other side of the island that Blade only now noticed. The building was about eight stories high and shaped like an offset pyramid. The side of the building nearest the water on the far side climbed straight up while all three of the other sides sloped inward as they went up. It was a design, Blade saw at once, which explained to everyone in the organization how the power ladder worked. The bottom of the building was large, and as you moved higher in the organization, the altitude of your position in the building changed accordingly. The way the building was shaped showed everyone that there was only room for one at the top. Blade looked at the top of the building, sure that that was their eventual destination. The front of the building had a very elaborate entrance made up of neatly shaped shrubs and tall, spindly trees that made the building seem very ominous as it rose up and away from the entrance. It looked like a snake coiled back, ready to strike. The storm brewing in the sky behind it did nothing to diminish this image. The inside of the building was purely functional. Visitors did not come here to be pampered, they came to make money or loose it. Blade was ushered unceremoniously down a side corridor to a turbo lift that ran up the side of the sloping building.

Blade looked out the glass lift as they rose quickly up the side of the tall structure. The back of the island seemed to be devoid of rocks and might actually serve as a beach in warmer times. Blade had little time for sight seeing, as they arrived at their destination quite quickly. The doors parted, and Sting led Blade into the chief's private office. Blade paused briefly at the word "office," seeing that the only item in the room that validated that definition was a large wooden desk. The carpet was a very deep, rich green, that almost swallowed Blade's feet as he stepped onto it. The walls were made entirely of glass, but that conclusion was only reached after close examination. The windows were heavily tinted to reduce the sun's glare, and against the black backdrop of night, they could have been easily mistaken for opaque durasteel. The furniture in the room was all about plush softness. Couches and chairs littered the floor in a strategic arrangement, and in the corner a small bar boasted several of the finest drinks, both legal and illegal, in the system. The occupants in the room doubled upon Sting and Blade's entry. The chief was obviously the older, large man, reclining dramatically in a large chair behind the desk while another henchman stood in front of the desk as the two men entered.

"Well, well," the large man said in greeting, "this must be our special guest. Please do come in and have a seat. I understand that you bring gifts."

Blade smiled at the man. "Correction, sir. A gift is something that is given out of good will with no intention of anything in return."

The large man laughed heartily, leaning back even further in his chair. "Boldness. I like that." The chief brought his chair back square with the floor and got up, surprising Blade with the ease in which he moved his large frame. "I am sure you are referring to your payment." He produced a matching case to Blade's own and placed it on the desk in front of him. Blade got up and walked over to the desk, forcing the other man standing there to retreat slightly. He placed his drug filled case down next to the monetary laden one, and the exchange was made. "I'm sure you will find it is all there like we agreed upon." Knowing that he had to make a good impression, he opened the case anyway and examined the stacks of credit chips.

"Seven hundred fifty?" Blade asked as he closed the case.

"Grand," the big man said, completing the figure. "You don't take anything for granted do you?"

"They say you can only take two things for granted in this life," Blade said as he slid the heavy case off the desk, "death and taxes. And I plan on avoiding both."

The chief laughed again as he plopped back down in his chair and beckoned Blade to return to his. "Harvin, would you be so kind as to get our esteemed guest here a drink." Everyone in the room could tell that it was an order, with the question mark at the end simply forgotten.

"Corellian blood on the rocks," Blade said to the other man who had been in the room. As he ordered the drink, he couldn't help but gaze toward the rocky shoreline, even though it was indistinguishable.

The chief caught the look and understood it's meaning. "Do you have Corellian blood in you?" Blade shook his head. "Then I think you have nothing to fear."

"Should I be worried if I did?" Blade asked as he received his drink with a nod of thanks.

"Do you mean, have others before you met their fate with their blood on the rocks below? Do I detect a little apprehension in a future commitment toward this organization? I assure you, I have yet to throw my first body from this room. And if I may say so, from what I can tell of you so far, you have nothing to fear, that is, unless you jump on your own free will." The chief took a sip from a glass that he had sitting on his desk before continuing. "If not Corellian blood, then what have you?"

"I believe my lineage can be traced back to Coruscant."

"Capitol of the New Republic. A despicable organization if you asked me. I hope you are from a generation before their reign."

Blade understood the concern. His age was slightly less than that of the New Republic itself. "No, I hail from the Empire."

"Now there was a time to do business. The only rules were to stay out of their way, and you could make as much money as you wanted. Now there is a widespread crackdown on smuggling, and the lists of illegal cargo are longer than those of legal cargo. The only way a man can survive is to operate out here on the edge of explored space where the pretentious fingers of democracy are yet to take hold."

As Blade swirled the red liquid of his drink around his glass, he couldn't help but like this guy. He took his first sip and watched as a small light illuminated itself on the big man's desk. The chief pressed a small button in response. "Yea." He paused as he listened to a voice only he could here. "Excellent." . . . "No, bring her up." Blade sat in silence as the big man across the desk drained the last of his glass, patiently waiting for an explanation, if one was forth coming.

The chief got up from his chair and walked around to the front of his desk. "Let me tell you something about this business, Blade: you always want to be the victor. Do you know why?"

"Why?" Blade humored him.

"Because they get all the spoils."

In answer to Blade's next question, the turbo lift opposite the one he had used to come up opened to reveal two more members to add to the party. A third henchman was toting a very reluctant woman. Correction - a very reluctant girl. Upon closer examination Blade could see that she wasn't quite out of her teens. However, with curves like hers, only a blind man would confuse her for anything but a woman.

"Sonya, now why did you have to go running off like that?" Blade was quickly growing sick from the look the much bigger man was giving the beautiful young woman. Blade could tolerate and even condone many things the laws couldn't, but this wasn't one of them. "Didn't you know that on an island of this size there are only so many places you can run to. Next time Stellen might not be so gracious as to bring you back uninjured."

Sonya was wearing a tight fitting long sleeve sweeter that didn't quite make it all the way to her waist, around which was tied a knee high skirt. Blade watched in controlled horror as the chief made his way slowly to the terrified woman. The big man's fingers were visibly aching to reach through the thin fabric of Sonya's sweater. Blade looked around at the three other men in the room and saw that they were quite content to watch their boss "go to work."

"Ahem," Blade cleared his throat rather loudly. The chief looked up from his prey, now only a few feet away. His face showed first confusion and then anger at this youngster's interruption of his fun. "Is this how you treat your guests? Where I come from, when it's time for desert, the guests are served first."

The anger left the boss's face, but the confusion remained. "To the victor goes -"

"Ah," Blade interrupted as he stood from his chair and hoisted his credits into the air, "but are we not both victors today."

The chief's face melted away into all smiles now. The other men in the room were appalled at this newcomer's boldness but the headman backed away graciously. "I beg your pardon." Blade noticed the other men's reactions and wondered what the world was coming to when men could react adversely to someone attempting to stop rape while they were gladly willing to watch it. "I guess it should be: 'To the victors go the spoils.'"

We'll see just who's victorious in a minute, Blade thought to himself, but now he focused on Sonya - beautiful, young, scared Sonya. As Blade walked the short distance between them, he took his time and stared deeply into the girl's eyes. All the fight had been taken out of this one, but he could see that it had taken a lot effort to remove that fire. Blade stood right in front of her, nearly a foot taller, and he felt his whole body undergoing the strengthening. He didn't really know what else to call it. He had this ability to calm his body so entirely right before any type of physical exertion that it seemed to not only strengthen his own motions, but slow down everyone else's. He looked deep into Sonya's eyes, his own blue orbs penetrating hers and transmitting some of his calm into her. His hand moved slowly across her forehead and drew a wayward piece of brown hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. He moved his hand gently down her cheek and cradled her chin in his hand. He could almost feel the chief's breath on his back as the huge man looked on from behind. He could also feel that Sonya was now very docile. "I have two words for you," Blade said quietly, "stay down."

Without warning, Blade moved his hand from Sonya's chin to her chest and shoved her to the floor. At the same time he pivoted on his left foot and brought his right boot back hard into the chief's throat. The big man gagged violently and went to the floor. Blade didn't wait for the others to figure out what was going on, and as Sting tentatively left his chair to join the fray, Blade sent his credit briefcase flying fast into the henchman's forehead forcing the man back into his chair.

Blade leaped over the large desk easily as Harvin, who had only been standing ten feet away, drew a blaster. Harvin's first shot missed as he tried to hit Blade flying over the desk. Blade landed and heaved the large, but relatively light, office chair at the gunman. Harvin's second shot went high as his arms flew up to protect himself from the awkward projectile. He went down, but not out.

Blade turned to find Stellen, the third henchman, right behind him with his own blaster raised. Blade let his right leg fly in a sweeping kick that disarmed the man almost as fast as he had drawn the weapon. Without pause, the thug produced a vibro-blade in his other hand. Stellen wielded it with obvious skill, but his two thrusts and large swipe seemed very slow and clumsy to Blade's hyperactive senses. The younger man grabbed the attacking wrist and yanked the knife wielder past him, kneeing him hard in the stomach and flipping him over the desk. Blade turned to watch Stellen fly right into Harvin who had been struggling to rise from under the chair, and they both went down in a heap. Blade also saw that the chief was getting up with his blaster out.

Blade dropped smoothly to the floor behind the large desk as two quick shots seared the air that his head had just vacated. Under the desk Blade could see the big man's ankles, and the younger man performed a perfect sweep kick, knocking the chief to the floor. Blade squeezed himself through the foot high space between the desk and the floor and found himself lying next to Sonya. The calm that he had imputed into her moments ago had long since vanished. "Stay down!" he screamed as he leaped to his feet.

All three of his remaining enemies began to encircle him. Sting was unmoving in his chair, and Blade could see blood dripping from his forehead. Harvin and Stellen moved in together from Blade's forward right and left. Blade attacked the air in between them, and they both moved a little wider apart. Feeling confident they had him surrounded, Stellen and Harvin moved in quickly, only to each receive a heard elbow to the head.

As Blade watched them stumble away, he was encased in a tremendous bear hug from behind. The trapped fighter could literally hear the huge man growl as he tried to squeeze the life out of his smaller opponent. Blade pushed off the ground hard, trying to execute a back flip while still encased in the bear like arms. The sudden change in momentum caused the chief to stumble backwards and trip over the fallen office chair. He had to let go of Blade to brace his fall, and the more nimble fighter completed his flip, landing with his feet next to the big man's head. Blade hesitated only briefly over the prone boss's form and delivered a vicious chop to his neck.

Blade looked up from his unconscious victim and saw that Harvin was scrambling for his gun. Blade took two running steps and leaped at the henchman. Harvin's hand closed around the weapon, but Blade's flying tackle sent him headfirst into the glass wall, and he slumped against it. Blade ripped the gun from the limp thug's hand, turned, and fired just as Stellen had recovered his gun. Stellen's shot went just high over Blade's shoulder, but he took Blade's shot full in the chest.

Blade gave the room one last look before he allowed himself to relax. He ran over to Stellen and recovered his weapon. He examined both weapons briefly, set them to self-destruct-overload, and tossed them into the middle of the room. "Let's go!" He shouted at Sonya. The girl was still in shock from what she had just witnessed, but managed to find enough strength in her legs to stand. He rushed over to her, scooped up his credit case, and yanked her by the hand toward the turbo lift. As they ran to the lift, Blade saw that it was already on its way up. A quick check on the other lift in the room showed the same thing. Blade glanced up into the corner of the room. "Cameras! I should have known."

"What are we going to do?" Sonya spoke for the first time.

Blade ran back toward the desk and accidentally kicked the chief's gun. He bent over and picked it up. The whine from the two blasters he had set on overload was becoming shriller every second. "Do you remember which side of the building the water is on?" Blade asked as he eyed both translucent walls perpendicular to the turbo lifts.

Sonya paused for a minute. "That one," she said, pointing to one of the walls.

Blade turned his back to the wall and fired five quick shots into the opposite bank of windows. "I hope you're wrong," he said as he dropped the weapon and grabbed her wrist. They sprinted toward the shredded glass wall, and Blade swung his case in front of them, shattering the glass as they jumped out into the night air.

The two turbo lifts opened almost simultaneously, and four men from each poured into the room, their eyes transfixed on the cascading glass from the wall and the two falling forms disappearing into the night. They also became aware of an intense screaming sound just a few moments before the whole top floor of the building exploded.

Blade and Sonya rode the buffeting winds far out into the night, and as they fell, the fiery explosion expanded above them. Blade had thought they would make it, when the explosion unexpectedly traveled down the entire height of the building, consuming the whole structure in an enormous fireball. What had simply been two level-three grenades had turned into a full yield sub-atomic eruption. Blade was thrown out to sea and lost his hold on both Sonya and the case, as he tumbled through the air. He hit the water much harder than he had expected and was shocked by its incredibly frigid temperature. His head came back to the surface just in time to see Sonya splash down thirty feet away.

Blade burst through the rough waves toward her and dove deep into the chilly waters. His hand passed through what he thought was her hair and then against one of her trailing arms. He managed to lock a grip on her forearm and hoisted her back to the surface. She gasped desperately as her head broke the surface, but she took in more water than air. Fighting against the wind and the waves, Blade managed to tow his limp companion to the shore. The beach was covered with flaming shrapnel, but Blade managed to find a relatively baron spot to lay the young woman down. A quick check told him that she wasn't breathing. He straddled her prone form, depressed her chest cavity twice, and was rewarded by having a lung full of water spewed into his face. Sonya gasped again, and this time got exclusively air.

"Are you okay?" He asked with genuine concern in his voice. Sonya nodded her head slowly, her breath finally coming in controlled amounts. "Are you sure?" She nodded again, though curious as to his persistence. "I mean, I am trained in mouth to mouth resuscitation, but only if you need it."

"Mouth to mouth?" Sonya asked, a sly smile creeping into her voice.

"I am actually an expert at it."

"Well maybe I do have a little more water stuck in my lungs." Blade bent low and their lips brushed against each other. "Or a lot."

To the victor go the spoils, Blade thought, as he fell on top of Sonya. The pair was soon totally oblivious to their surroundings, most of all to the several rescue ships that were circling the island.

Chapter 1 "Imperial Employment"

The Super Star Destroyer, Dark Fist, floated through the fine spray of space dust like a giant ship gliding through the water. The small bits of asteroid powder flared briefly as they struck the ship's particle shields, futily attempting combustion in the vacuum of space. The ship stayed away from the bigger rocks that orbited in a never-ending pattern around a medium size sun several trillion kilometers away.

At a great distance (the only kind of distance recommended for viewing a Super Star Destroyer) the small ship that left the docking bay on the underside of the ship was barely visible and only with the aid of microbinoculars could the identity of the fighter be discerned. Even then not many would recognized the age-old ship with its new design. Inside the cockpit of the small one-man fighter, Ward Leonce flexed his fingers slowly, not yet touching the controls of his ship. A small blue light blinked several times informing him that the autopilot controlling his departure was just about to disengage and that it was time for the young pilot to begin his training run in the modified TIE.

Ward took the flight stick in two hands and flipped the autopilot off with his index finger. His foot reached forward under the flight console and began testing the power modulating levers. The slightly nervous youth depressed the center pedal to the floor, sending all available power to the engines as he pulled the double yoked throttle backward. The small ship hurtled forward into the asteroid field and the new Imperial pilot testing grounds.

Ward took a brief second to remove his right hand from the throttle and whipped beaded sweat from his brow. Ward took a slow breath and forced himself to stay calm. It's just like the simulator, he told himself, and as he looked out his view screen, he couldn't help but wonder if his superiors hadn't just walked him down into the docking bay and put him inside a simulator in the shape of a TIE. The sims had become very realistic lately. Ward pulled the throttle back and felt himself lean back hard in his seat. He shook his head slowly. This was real. The sims still could generate an adequate acceleration sensation like the real thing.

As Ward neared the edge of the belt, he worked his foot back to the center three pedals and eased a little weight on the outside left one. The young ace couldn't help but smile at the irony of his actions as he transferred some of the ship's energy into the shields. Shields in a TIE? He still couldn't get used to the idea. Ward was young enough that his flying hours weren't those of a veteran, but he had flown enough of the old TIE's to know that shields were not an option that came standard with anything that the Empire made.

Ward felt a little of the power leave the engines, and he slacked his hold on the throttle. His feet moved wide and found the altitude controls. This was new too. Before the TIE pilot had all of his controls on his stick: push forward to brake, pull back to accelerate, pull back and down to curl up, back and up to dive down, and left and right controlled the turns. The laser canons were located under the thumbs and torpedoes (if you had any) were under the middle fingers. Thinking back on the old design Ward realized that it was just too much to ask of a pilot. It was a small wonder that the X-Wings had such a good record against the smaller craft.

Ward let the asteroid in front of him fill the forward view before he flipped the bracket between the doubled yoked flight stick, turning it into two, independent control rods. Ward took a fraction of a second to remind himself that right was up and left was down as he depressed the right pedal and pulled the left stick back. The TIE rolled up and to the left, following the contour of the asteroid as if it were a chisel carving the rock out of its original boulder.

TIE stood for Twin Ion Engine and until only recently that name had meant that the fighters would create a horrific scream as they passed, the double engines combining for sonic pulse half a step out of sinc with each other. Now that title truly had meaning as each engine was controlled independently of the other. Ward leveled the two sticks together and let up on his right foot turning the ship back square with the infinite void of space.

The next few asteroids were avoided with the young pilot's usual skill, and soon Ward was in the heart of his training run. Two large rocks came spinning toward him and he watched as the only path ahead was between the rotating rocks. He watched in the shorts seconds before encounter as the distance between the asteroids fluctuated. As before, Ward pulled his left stick back and depressed the right pedal, telling his ship to roll on its left, only this time he followed the action by pulling his right throttle back as well and slamming his left foot to the floor. This second command emphasized his earlier actions and sent the small craft into a tremendous corkscrew. The width of the ship changed with the gap it flew through asteroids, like three gears meshing together, and Ward soon found himself safely past the obstacle.

The corkscrew was ended by a reversal of the earlier commands only to find that an enormous asteroid loomed directly in front of the apparently doomed craft. With Ward's present speed, no move whether up, down, left, or right was capable of moving the ship out of harm's way. The only safe direction was backwards. Ward yanked his left stick back while pushing his right forward. The TIE spun around like a top without changing its forward momentum in the slightest. It took about seven micro seconds for the TIE to complete the turn and when done, Ward pulled both sticks back and jammed the right pedal to the floor as he moved his left foot to the middle pedal, transferring all available power to the engines.

A normal ship wouldn't have been able to spin itself around with a zero turning radius, and even if it could, its engines would rip themselves to shreds if they tried to engage at full throttle while the ship was going in the opposite direction. Even if a ship was capable of changing its flight path by 180 degrees in a split second, the sheer force of acceleration would turn the pilot into a quivering film of flesh.

As Ward executed the maneuver perfectly the ship shuddered only briefly as the engines fought against the ship's tremendous momentum. After three nanoseconds the advanced flight computer realized what was happening and it engaged the hyperspace inertia dampers. The TIE fighter was still far too small to contain a hyperspace engine, but the actual engine was only a small part of the whole hyperspace package.

In order to travel safely through hyperspace you needed the engine, which was a large fusion engine that fed off the speed of the ship, drawing in matter and sending it out as energy - essentially just a large fusion reactor that was fed at the speed of light. Of course that meant that the ship had to be accelerated to light speed before the engines would be effective. This required hyperspace boosters that engaged only for a few microseconds during the jump. The ship also needed a hyperspace computer to calculate a safe path through space.

Perhaps the most important part of the entire device was the most overlooked. In order to reach light-speed fast enough to not burn out the hyperspace boosters and to activate the main hyperspace engines, a near infinite acceleration had to be obtained. For this extreme acceleration to be possible a ship needed to have an inertia damper. When a ship jumps to hyperspace it appears to elongate as the front of the ship accelerates and the back remains stationary. At the completion of the jump the back of the ship appears to snap forward, and the entire ship is slung into hyperspace.

Actually, instead of the ship elongating, the inertia damper compresses the space in front of the ship. In essence, it accelerates the space around the ship instead of vice versa. It is like standing still on the top of a land speeder. You are stationary relative to your immediate surroundings, but the wind is rushing past you at an incredible speed. If you jump off the speeder you will hit the ground at whatever speed the speeder had plus the speed you gained by jumping. When a ship enters hyperspace it activates its boosters to escape the compressed field and hits normal space with an incredible initial velocity. Since it gains the velocity instantaneously, the acceleration is infinite, but the acceleration felt by the occupants of the ship is only that of the boosters.

All of the technology involved was lost on Ward as he executed the maneuver, but the ship knew exactly what was going on. The space in front of the TIE compressed toward it, bringing the two asteroids Ward had just maneuvered through dangerously close, the field lasted only a few microseconds as the TIE accelerated through edge of the field and swung up and over the asteroid that was now behind it. The TIE flew inverted over the large asteroid at near light speed, but since it didn't have any hyperspace engines, it wasn't able to keep the speed and the inertia damper quickly decelerated the ship in the same way that it had accelerated it.

Though it was nice to be able to achieve high velocities instantly, it was rather unsafe to do so inside an asteroid field. The entire move, from start to finish, took 1.57 seconds. Ward was barely able to regain a normal speed before he was faced with avoiding three more asteroids. His left foot moved to the shield pedal, while his right gave the weapons systems some juice. Ward spun around the first asteroid and shot down the other two. The third asteroid exploded abnormally, sending an enormous chunk of rock at the small ship. The asteroid struck the protective shielding, and the whole ship shuddered, teetering on the edge of destruction. The entire future of the Imperial navy hung in the balance as the shields of the small ship fought against over-loading the system with their first true test. The TIE spun away from the collision with its shields all but gone. Ward stopped the random spinning and dodged beneath another asteroid that would have surely gotten through the depleted shields.

On the Star Destroyer two men stood on the bridge watching an enlarged view of the training run. The TIE fighter was now through the thickest part of the asteroid field and both men had no doubt that the skilled pilot would now make it through the rest unscathed.

"Well, what do you think?" Snotzenexer turned to the other man.

"There's no doubt that he is the best pilot we have, Admiral. The question we need to ask now is 'How many of him do we have?'"

"There are 86 of his clones in Imperial service. Three serve on each of the 27 Imperial Star Destroyers and there are five on this Super Star Destroyer, or there will be when he returns."

"What station does he hold?"

Snotzenexer turned from the view of the training run as it had just ended. "He was simply a tech hand in the cargo and docking bay. He worked on TIE's and other Imperial machinery. While he was obviously the best person for the position, he hadn't shown any incredible skill before, but then we had never tried to get him to pilot before. I think it's time to pull the rest of his brothers off their normal duty and begin training immediately. I assume they all have experience in old TIE's so the transition should be just as smooth for them as it was for Lieutenant Leonce. Can you think of someone you can get to train them, Commander?"

"Well, I could get a few of the pilots to stop their current assignment of upgrading the rest of the TIE's, and maybe some of the lieutenant -"

"I was thinking of Ward."

"Excuse me, Admiral?"

Snotzenexer smiled. "I know it's not protocol for a man with no command experience to be put in command of men who he doesn't out-rank, but these are strange times." Snotzenexer turned away from the puzzled commander. "Get a group of five authority figures, put Lieutenant Leonce in command of the training group and get my pilots ready for combat in less than a month."

Commander Pearson swallowed as he watched the departing Admiral stroll down the central walkway in the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer. He was mentally trying to think of five people he could find who would be willing to take orders from a tech hand. Pearson knew that Snotzenexer was supposed to be a mental giant on the order of Thrawn, but that just made it harder to follow his commands. With a lesser commander, he would have been able to convince himself that his superior was wrong.

***

"One hundred twelve!! Were you out of your mind?!"

"Bu-"

"Absolutely no buts!" The commander tried to compose himself enough to sit back down in his seat but failed miserably and began pacing instead. "Our scanners were able to detect 112 different strands of DNA that can be linked to sentience, not counting yours and that girl you rescued. That is 112 people in one building of an organization that we assumed to contain no more than 100 people total. Now we have to believe they are bigger than we predicted and might still exist somewhere else. No problem, right? We'll just interrogate one of the gang members we apprehended when we stormed the island you located for us." The enraged man paused and hit his forehead sarcastically. "Oh, wait. There are no prisoners. They were all blown to kingdom come!"

"Sir," the young man started, "if you'll let me explain-"

"Let me guess it was the girl, right? What was her name - Sonya?"

"She was in danger."

"Danger, huh? Just like that girl in Krongan Square?" The young man slumped in defeat at the mention of his previous assignment. "What was she in danger of? Buying a faulty shirt? You were simply supposed to watch the exchange of weapons, take down some serial numbers, remember some faces, and maybe get close enough to get some positive ID's. Instead you run over to help some pretty girl shop in the nearby market."

"Hey, I got her number."

The pacing older man found himself next to his desk, and he slammed his hand down on it. "Did you get the numbers on the heavy transports used in the exchange? I'm not joking around here."

"I got them, didn't I?"

"You missed the exchange, so instead of letting them get away, you tracked them down yourself and destroyed both gangs, the weapons, and a pretty big portion of the city of Krongan to boot. What about the Illians?"

"That was different; she was part of it."

"Yes, my over-aggressive fellow, she was part of. She was their leader for Sith's sake. You knew that the leader of the Illians was a woman, yet some how that slipped your mind, and you let her get away."

"Yea, but I got the rest of them, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did, and now there is no one to question as to the where-abouts of they're lovely leader." The commander finally calmed down enough to sit back down behind his desk and face the man across the room with a level gaze. "Eranadis - or should I call you Blade?" The young man flinched at the ridiculous code name he had been forced to use. "Eran, I am faced with a tough decision. The Association has been giving you a long leash - a very long leash - but this latest botched mission has broke the bantha's back."

"In all seriousness, chief, I didn't mean to destroy the whole building like that."

"Let's take a slight pause and try to think what that building might have been holding. They were a terrorist slash smuggling group. They specialized in explosive demolitions. I wonder where they kept all of these high explosives? For that matter, where did they store all the fuel for their countless transports? If you had lit a match in that building in the wrong place, you would have gotten the same result.

"Back to my tough decision about you future. You see the Association wants to see you gone. They want to shove a few pocketfuls of credits at you and say 'thanks for everything and try not to let the asteroid belt hit you in the rear on your way out of the system.' On the other hand, I have the Spoyels praising you endlessly for bringing them their daughter back safely. They happen to be a very prominent family, hence the reason their daughter was taken."

"Excuse me," Eran interrupted, "what did you say their name was?"

"The Esteemed Spoyels? Don't tell me you live in such a haze that you don't even know whom you rescued? By the way, out of curiosity, how was it that their daughter was found on the island without a shirt?"

"Funny things happen to clothes when you jump away from an exploding, eight story building into freezing water," Eran said with a straight face, his mind working out something else. To the victor goes the Spoyels.

"Well, anyway, they want to give you an award in a public ceremony. I can't very well turn around, fire you, and keep face. You will accept the reward with grace that you shall have to find somewhere, and then you will take a very long vacation to think about what you have done." The commander finished his lecture as if addressing a four year-old. "Is that clear?"

Eran nodded mutely and started to rise. "By the way," his boss stopped him one last time, "were you able to recover either the money or the spice?" Eran shook his head and walked out the door. A few minutes later he was outside and took a deep breath of the fresh air.

"Nice day, isn't it?"

Eran spun around, surprised that this person had been able to so easily startle him. She was leaning against the building he had just left. Her shoulder blades and left foot was her only supports as her arms and other leg were crossed casually. She looked to be near forty, slender, but with a very physical presence that made it look like she would be a tough person to intimidate. Eran had developed a very extensive study on female attractiveness, and this new comer fell into the "easy to look at" category. Her age was a small deterrent, but Eran could imagine her twenty years younger, and except for her stern eyes, she hadn't changed much.

"I said, 'Nice day, isn't it?'"

Eran watched as she effortlessly propelled herself away from the wall with a shrug of her shoulders and walked over to him. "Not bad," Eran said cautiously. He was quickly realizing that this wasn't just a casual conversation, but this strange woman had a definite agenda. "Not bad at all. A bit too much sun though. We could do with a few more clouds."

She smiled at his sudden openness. "I disagree, the sun is just perfect. If I wasn't so busy talking with you, I might try to find the spare time to do a little sun bathing."

Eran gawked at the out of place statement, but immediately realized that the images that were floating through his mind concerning this stranger sun bathing, were put there to put him off balance. She was a clever one. Eran took a moment before answering to examine her a little more closely. She was wearing navy blue pants that showed signs of pressing, but were crease free at the moment. A mid arm black coat was unbuttoned down the middle revealing a plain white T-shirt underneath. It looked to be military, but Eran couldn't tell what kind. "Not a bad idea. I might have to join you."

The woman smiled at this comeback and took another step away from the wall. Eran decided to test the stability of the conversation by starting to walk down the sidewalk toward his air car parked around the corner. She followed. They walked in silence for a few seconds. The traffic beside them sped by and reflected flashes of sunlight at the pair that made it difficult to concentrate on the situation.

"Maybe you were right," the woman said. "A few more clouds wouldn't be-"

"All right lady!" Eran said, pulling up in the sidewalk to address his mystery companion. "What's up."

"I want to employ your services," she said, cutting to the chase.

"Employ my services as a what?"

"That depends. What do you consider yourself? An undercover agent? A special operations commando? A misguided youth?"

"Give me two good reasons to continue this conversation."

"You're unemployed, and we pay well?"

"What do you mean I'm unemployed, and who is this 'we?' A moment ago you said 'I want to employ your services.'"

The woman sighed. "'Long vacation' doesn't sound like a promotion to me. I'll tell you who the 'we' is if you promise to hear me out to the end."

Eran considered this for a moment. The fact that she knew about his planned vacation from the Association didn't escape his attention. How she knew about this wasn't as big a concern to him as the simple fact that she knew it. She definitely had connections somewhere. But were they the kind of connections that he wanted to get tied into? "OK, I'll listen, but first I want a name - preferably yours."

"Sanson," the woman replied, paused, and then continued, "Admiral Sanson of the Imperial Navy."

"Wow, hold everything. The Imperial Navy? Is this the same Imperial Navy that was at Endor? Or is it the one that was at Bilbringi? Or, what was this latest crushing blow - Danzig 359?"

"I was at Danzig 359," Sanson said quite calmly.

"No you weren't. The news reports said that-"

"The news was wrong. I left Danzig 359 in the Super Star Destroyer, Dark Fist. Presently it and almost 30 Imperial Star Destroyers are hiding in the asteroid belt past the third planet of this system. The Empire is very much alive."

"You want me to assassinate leaders of the Republic, don't you? You want me to help you start a war. I'm not interested."

"The war is already started. It has been going on now for longer than you've been alive. And no, we don't wish you to kill anyone."

Eran took serious pause before answering. He had just heard, what would be considered in military terms, highly classified information. He knew that Imperial Admirals don't just throw that kind of information around for fun. He suddenly had the sinking feeling that if he tried to refuse this offer, his life would be forfeit. He tried to chuckle at the idea of the Empire trying to kill him. So many people had tried and no one had come close. But any laughter that came from the idea was forced. Still, regardless of the consequences of not taking the job, what ever it turned out to be, there was the promise of good money.

Despite what he had told his boss, he had managed to salvage the money case from the shore of the island, and was not short on cash, but that didn't mean he could simply retire. He considered his loyalties for a moment, only to realize he had none. He had definite plans of becoming self-employed and the galaxy under the New Republic's rule, made easy money hard to come by. By the same token, he didn't like the way the old Empire had run things. He hadn't been around, but he had heard stories. Of course that was the old Empire. The new Empire was standing before him.

"Okay," Eran said tentatively. "I will listen to what you've got to say, but I'm not making any guarantees."

Sanson smiled at him. "That's all we were expecting, Eranadis Palpatine."

Chapter 2 "Information Distribution"

"C'mon Dad! Are you getting slow with old age?" Jacen mocked him as he ran past his father.

"I don't call it slowness," Han replied as he reached out and poked the ball away from his son as Jacen drove past him. "I like to call it caution."

The ball rolled away from the pair and they both watched as Anakin went to retrieve it. During the pause in the action Han searched for a few answers. "So Luke taught you this game?"

"Not really," Jaina spoke up as she and her mother walked toward the pair. "We kind of made it up, basing it on a Jedi exercise that Uncle Luke had us to do back at the Academy."

"Uncle had us through rocks into a small barrel to try and hone our physical skill and make them mesh with our Force skills. We would have to throw over twenty stones into a bucket at a distance of over a hundred feet."

Han glanced at the bucket that was hung about ten feet high in the palace's rec room and then at the humble size of the rec room. "Over a hundred feet, huh. So this is pretty easy for you, isn't it?"

Anakin was returning with the ball. "It would be if we were using our Force ability," he said as he casually tossed the ball over his shoulder. "But we're not," he added as the ball dropped cleanly through the hoop.

"But what about all this other stuff?" Leia asked. "How did rock throwing turn into this?"

"We thought it would be more fun if we turned it into a competition," Jaina explained. "If you had to put the rock in the basket past someone else, it made it a whole lot harder."

"It's the stupid dribbling that I hate," Han added.

"We had to make it harder to move the ball, Dad. Or else it would just be too easy." Jacen walked over and picked up the ball from where Anakin had thrown it. "I believe it was out on you."

Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin were playing against Han, Leia, and Chewie, and so far the teams seemed to be pretty evenly matched. Jacen passed to Jaina, who tried a quick head fake on her mom and drove to the basket. Chewie was the only reason the parents were able to hang with the young Jedi, and he stepped into the lane, using his big body and long arms to stop Jaina's move. Jaina found Anakin relived of his defender and tried to pass around the harry giant. Chewie had blocked Jaina's vision, and she didn't see her father streaking toward the passing lane.

Han picked off the pass with a delighted chuckle and passed out to his wife who was waiting on the wing. Leia had turned into a pretty good jump shooter in the short practice session they were having, and quickly gave her team a one-point lead. Jaina recovered the ball and walked back to the top of the court to restart.

As Jaina walked past her mother, she gave her a dirty look. Most of Leia's sudden success at the game had come because her conscious had allowed her to delve into her Force skills to augment her performance, something that the kids swore they weren't doing. Jaina passed the ball to her youngest brother, who found that the only way to play against the two-meter monstrosity that was Chewbacca was to bring him away from the hoop.

Jacen tried to post up his father, and Anakin passed him the ball. Jacen made a quick fake to his right and then flummoxed his father with a spin to his left, laying the ball up and in.

"I believe that ties it now," Jacen said as Han grabbed the ball and headed back up to the top of the court. Han passed to Leia, but Jaina wasn't going to let her mother make another one of her Force-shots, and had her hands up in a swarming defense. Leia struggled briefly with the ball until she lobbed it in Chewie's direction. Anakin tried to jump up desperately, but the wookiee simply plucked the ball out of the air. Chewie still hadn't learned the finer points of the game and brought the ball down after catching it. Anakin made use of his quickness by batting the ball out of Chewie's hands. The ball hit the floor, and a mad scramble ensued. Chewie howled at being stripped of the ball, reached amongst the combatants, and snagged the ball with his claw enhanced hands. Unleashing all of his frustrations at the game at once, the wookiee, pivoted, leaped in the air, and slammed the ball into the hoop as hard as he could.

The ball and metal hoop both came crashing down on Chewie's head, and his ferocity quickly turned to sheepishness as he realized what he had done. The other five players were beside themselves with laughter and Chewie soon began to see the humor and joined in.

"I guess the games over," Jaina finally said.

"We won," Han was quick to point out.

"No, I think it ended in a tie," Jaina corrected.

"What do you mean? We have more points."

"We are assessing your team a one point penalty for destroying the equipment."

This time the laughter was broken up by a seventh person. Wedge strolled into the rec room, took a few moments to regard the situation, shrugged his shoulders in his inability to comprehend what he saw, and walked toward the Solos. "Leia, you are needed in the conference room."

Leia took a towel from a rack on the wall and wiped the perspiration from her face. "Thanks, Wedge. Can I have a minute to visit the refresher?"

"Sure, the meeting doesn't start for another twenty minutes. Can I ask what you were-"

"No," Leia said, keeping a straight face, "you can't."

Wedge watched the chief of state walk briskly past him, he shrugged his shoulders again, and started to follow her. Wedge drew up suddenly and turned to regard the remaining occupants in the room. "Oh yea, there is someone here who wants to see 'someone important,'" Wedge said, making quotation marks with his fingers.

Han had gotten himself a towel too and looked at Wedge. "You don't qualify, Admiral Antilles?"

Wedge shrugged his shoulders a third time. "I guess not. I think she had a select few people in mind, and I wasn't one of them."

"She?" Han asked. "Do we know this esteemed guest?"

"I believe you do. She said she'd be here for about three days. She's staying in the guest wing. Room 113 I believe. Oh and she says to make sure that I don't send that 'blasted Corellian.'" Wedge turned and left.

Han turned to regard Chewie. "I have a bad feeling about this."

***

Mara Jade paced her room methodically. She wasn't waiting for anyone in particularly, but she had nothing better to do than to test the integrity of the palace's carpet. So far it hadn't failed.

The door chimed and brought Mara back to the present. She had been remembering all of the times she had led others to the guest quarters, and now she was staying here. "Come in."

The door slid back and Han made his way cautiously into the room, not sure if the former assassin had any booby traps ready for unwanted visitors. Mara's face fell visibly when she saw Han enter. "I told Antilles that I wanted to see someone important," Mara said, making sure that Han wouldn't be able to tell if sarcasm ran with the comment.

"I know," Han replied, not missing a beat, "that's why I brought Chewie." As if on cue, the tall wookiee walked into the small room. Han ignored Mara's look of total abhorrence, and proceeded to make himself comfortable in the one chair in the room. "So what brings Master Smugl-, uh, Master Trader, Mara Jade to Coruscant?"

Mara threw him a facetious, disgusted look before answering. "I have legitimate cargo, Solo - food for the local university. Jade's Fire has a unique ability among smaller ships to keep perishable items, and I like to take advantage of the high prices of food out of season. Moving food from a summer climate to a winter one can be quite profitable."

"Is this why you wanted to see someone important? To share, with our under-educated government officials, your vast expertise on trade, so that we can boost our yearly income."

"Hardly," Mara replied. She took a seat on the bed, noticing that Chewie was eyeing it up for a possible respite. "I have some news about the Empire."

"Oh," Han raised is eyebrows. "What Empire?"

"You know, Han, I was hoping to talk to Leia or maybe even Luke. If you don't want to hear me through, I'm sure they will." Mara paused for a while to give Han a chance for some sort of apology, but none came. "You have become way too complacent since you defeated Thrawn."

"Recently, or twenty years ago?" Han asked, referring to the incident they had just been through.

"Both. The Empire will never truly be dead. Another thing you should start to realize is that the officers that survive usually do so because they are the best. You know: 'Survival of the Fittest.' Luck has little to do with it anymore. You can't just sit back and brag that you have a bigger navy and control more territory so you are therefore impervious to any outside attack. The Empire knows that it can't fight you head on any more, so they will hit you slowly and in vital areas.

"When you first started your rebellion almost thirty years ago did you ever try to pit your navy against theirs, straight up. Of course not! You wouldn't have lasted five minutes. You performed concentrated attacks on key locations because you knew that was all you could do. When you fight a powerful enemy, you know that they aren't going to be sneaking around. You are going to go toe to toe and slug it out until someone falls. It is now when the Empire is small that you need to protect your borders and hold fast to your valuables."

"Oh, I see," Han began, "you've come to share your military knowledge with us as well as your trade knowledge." Mara stood up with a vicious scowl on her face. Han bit his lip hard, wishing to take back the last comment. This time he did apologize. "I'm sorry. Do you have news or rumors?"

Mara calmed visibly and sat back down. "What's the difference?" Han knew what she meant. In a populated galaxy this large, the news tended to be very slight and always slanted toward the government in power. Word of mouth from eyewitnesses was a much quicker, and often, more reliable means of information. "In three days I'm going to be leaving for the Varion system. My ex-copilot managed to tell a few people about my itinerary and they told me that there was reported Imperial activity in the system."

Han paused in thought. Han understood that the copilot was now an "ex" because he leaked the information. Mara seemed to go through copilots like an army medic went through bacta packs. More often than not they were young men who imagined that Mara was still a smuggler and wanted some excitement. Han wondered what he would have done thirty years ago when he was a young, cocky pilot if Mara would have strolled into him looking for a copilot. Despite his obvious skill, he was sure that Mara would have found some fault with him and dumped him like a load of contraband in restricted space. "What kind of activity?" Han asked, returning to the subject.

"Someone told him that they had a friend who had seen several Imperial class Star Destroyers monitoring the asteroid field."

"Several?" Han asked skeptically. "Are we talking two or twenty?"

Mara shrugged. "I don't know. I just figured since I was here and I knew something I should tell you. I know that some ships got away from you in your last attack, and I thought that this might be them."

Han rose, and Chewie stirred restlessly in the corner, realizing that this was the end of the meeting. "By the way," Mara asked, "where's Luke? Antilles said that Leia was in a meeting and that you were the only other 'important' person that he had tabs on."

"Why do you want to know?" Han asked with a slight mischievous look on his face. He knew that there was nothing between the two right now, but he also recognized some strange bond between them. Getting no reaction from Mara, Han answered. "He's over at the Academy trying to clean up the mess and supervising the new construction."

"Oh yea," Mara responded as her eyes rolled back in her head, obviously trying to locate some stored piece of information. "I remember hearing something about the Academy getting destroyed. Was it really bad?"

"It was essentially totaled. Luke decided to build some more modern structures to replace the shattered pyramids. I think it was a good idea. Now when I visit, I won't have to stay in those dank stone dwellings anymore. It will be nice to have a room with conditioned air, especially since the whole moon is a jungle to begin with."

"I might visit him," Mara said absent mindedly, her thoughts some where else for the moment.

"Might not need to make the trip. He's been back and forth between Coruscant and Yavin IV quite a few times in the last thirty days, for supplies and stuff."

Mara didn't answer but sat on her bed pondering. Han took this opportunity to leave, and he and Chewie walked out of the room ahead of the sliding door.

***

Leia just finished straightening her shirt as she hurriedly walked into the meeting room. No one had told her what this meeting was about, so when she saw the varied assortment of personnel in the room, her mind raced through the different possibilities. Wedge was there, of course, which meant the security of something was involved, or there was to be a decision that had to be made involving the navy. She saw that Senator Belsiphvin from the planet Encoust was sitting right beside Wedge. She was a relatively young and very attractive senator and had been voted to be the representative for the senate during contacts with new members. So this might have something to do with a potential addition to the Republic, but those were usually proposed in the senate in front of everyone. Leia looked at the third person in the room and it took her a moment to recognize the science officer. Lieutenant Commander Ransig had recently been promoted to the head of the Republics astronomics department after his involvement with the Dark Ring. That meant that some type of physical anomaly in space was involved. A black hole? A super nova? A worm hole? Leia looked at the final member in the room and now she had more questions than ever. Senator Trent was a very old man from the planet Verillee. He had no special rank at all in the senate. Leia had a very good memory and ran through the committees he was in: exploration, religion, and equal rights among lesser races.

Wedge motioned Leia to have the fifth and empty chair. The chief of state sat down quickly and immediately recognized that it was her job to start the meeting. Leia wondered how many people at the table understood that she had not yet been briefed as to why this meeting was being held. Wedge came to her rescue and opened. " As you all know," he started, giving Leia a wink, "we have received a distress call from the Denorid system."

Leia searched her knowledge of explored and charted space. The Denorid system was a long ways away, a few thousand mega kilcks outside the edge of the Danzig system. The Danzig system! They had received a distress call from Hastrin a few months ago, which was also on the edge of the Danzig system. That request said there was reported Imperial activity in the Danzig system and the Hastrins feared for their safety. That request had been handled in the senate and it had been decided that Han and Luke should go to ensure security and to begin negotiations for Hastrin's acceptance into the Republic. Though the distress call had been a hoax, the Imperial activity in the Danzig system had been a very real threat. Was this distress call the same thing? The Denorid system was on a different side of the Danzig system, but the Imperials might have moved. But then all the imperials had been killed - hadn't they? Leia then remembered that a few ships had escaped.

"Since the destruction of the Dark Ring, the Danzig system has been anything but stable," Wedge continued.

"But then it was never really stable to begin with," Ransig jumped in. "The Danzig system has always been as stable as a stack of sabaac cards. It's fine as long as no one touches it, but the slightest perturbation, and the whole thing will go down the refresher."

Leia knew little about the Danzig system. She knew that it was the largest known system in charted space, and was only called a system because no one had thought of a better name for the oddity. The Danzig system contained over 400 hundred stars and no life. Leia also knew that since the destruction of the Dark Ring there had been a lot of activity in the system.

"Since the destruction of the Dark Ring," Ransig said, speaking Leia's thoughts, "there have been five novas and countless orbit changes. From all my calculations the worst of it appears to be over, but if any kind of uniformity is reached again, it will be even more precarious than before. All it would take to set it off again is for a comet to streak through the system."

"Excuse my ignorance," pleaded Trent, "but what was the initial cause of the instability? I know that the Dark Ring was destroyed, but how does the destruction of one star base start this type of chain reaction?"

"When we fought the Dark Ring it projected an enormous interdiction field," Wedge explained. "Now a normal interdiction field causes a slight gravity field that restricts movement through hyperspace, and therefore makes any kind of fast escape impossible. How this happened exactly is unknown, but the interdiction field somehow became locked on, and as Danzig 359 began to go nova, all of the released energy was absorbed by the Dark Ring and was funneled through the interdiction field. What happened was that the interdiction field became so strong that it not only restricted motion in hyperspace, but all motion in normal space was also halted."

"If this had happened throughout the entire system," Ransig jumped in, "then there would be no problem. Everything would have stopped and been frozen in time, and then would continue as normal when the Dark Ring exploded. However, the Dark Ring was not centrally located in the system, and even if it had, it didn't have enough power to freeze the entire system. What happened was that about seventeen or eighteen stars were halted, while the other 400 odd stars kept moving. Stars don't move that quickly, and they definitely don't move very far in only a couple hours, but they do move. So after the Dark Ring was destroyed and the frozen stars began to move again, they found that they were in a different location with respect to everything else. Therefore, all of the gravitational pulls were off by a few degrees and the result was chaos. In most cases, a few orbits changed, and everything went back to normal. But as with Danzig 6, some of the stars lost all direction and simply went haywire."

But what does this have to do with the Denorid system, Leia wanted to scream. "The Denorid system contains three planets with life," Belsiphvin spoke for the first time. "They are not an advanced race and they have a very superstitious background. What little technology they have is simply left over equipment from when the Empire was in command there. Being so close to the Danzig system has made them very conscious of the sky. I hear that night and day are almost unrecognizable on two of the three worlds. I spoke with one of the planet's leader and they are very scared right now. Their astrologists are predicting destruction and chaos.

"You see, they follow the constellations and use them to basically run their entire lives. They have the Mighty Hawk that patrols the nights of the winter months. The winters on all three of the planets can be fierce, and they look to this constellation of a bird to protect them. Well two weeks ago the Mighty Hawk's eye went nova. Now the people are terrified that this coming winter will bring storms like they've never seen because their protector is blind."

Belsiphvin paused as she looked at her notes. "Most of the other stars that died were also members of important constellations. But even without a star exploding, just the slight shifting of the stars has reeked havoc on their star charts. What was formerly thought to be one big star is now two small ones. Appendages on certain creatures have morphed into unrecognizable shapes, and in some cases, joined other constellations. Frankly, they are a very frightened people."

Leia felt that the discussion was now entering the real phase, with the preliminary explanations out of the way, and she felt safe asking a question. "So, I guess the only question is 'Why did they contact us?'"

Belsiphvin looked Leia directly in the eyes and said in her most calm voice, "They want us to fix it."

"What?!" Leia screamed. "But-"

"They feel that we are the ones that caused all of the damage in the Danzig system," Wedge spoke up, "so they feel that it is in our power to undo what we have done."

"Is it in our power?" Leia asked, already knowing the obvious answer.

"Hardly," Ransig answered, as he was the only one at the table with the credentials to do so. Wedge threw the science officer a distasteful glance, telling him that his answer was rather lacking in this formal setting. "For starters," he continued, "it is totally impossible to bring back into existence a star that has been destroyed. If we had that kind of power, well, frankly, the Dark Ring would have been a walk in the park. To move a star is also nearly impossible. I say nearly because it was obviously done, however it took the energy of a supernova to do it. And in reality, the pumped up interdiction field didn't really move anything, but held things still, and then releasing them into a different environment, and thus only changing their original motion, not creating any new motion."

"I understand that they hold the stars in reverence, but how willing will they be to accept our explanation that nothing can be done?" Leia asked, looking at no one in particular.

Senator Trent had been watching the entire discussion with out speaking up to this point. Leia had begun to wonder what the man was doing here. "If I may say so," the old senator spoke up, "I don't think they will understand at all. On Verillee, my home planet, we are a very religious people and our beliefs stem from our forefathers who held all of nature in awe. They saw the stars as the eyes of the gods and the forces of nature as the displayment of their power. After we found out that the stars were simply super dense balls of continually combusting gasses, and that the lightening was simple electricity, and wind was the results of easily measured pressure fronts, we began to understand that we were wrong in thinking that these were the gods themselves, however it strengthened our belief in them. Although they were not physically present in our world, they were obviously physically represented.

"The people of the Denorid system seem to be where my people were two hundred years ago. You won't be able to convince them that what they think is history displayed on a 180 degree black canvas is really only the void of space specked with globe infernos."

"But we have to be able to tell them something," Leia pleaded. "What do they think of their sun? How do they compare it to the rest of their sky?"

"They don't see the need," Trent explained. "The stars come out at night, while the sun is only visible during the day. To them I'm sure that the idea that their sun and the stars are evenly remotely the same thing has not even crept into they're thinking." Trent paused while thinking of a good example. "Imagine if I told you that the Force is actually only the ability to alter a matter's potential energy by turning it into kinetic energy. And that this ability came from the use of brain wave frequencies. Not everyone has the same brain wave frequencies, so not everyone has the same ability."

"I would say that you are completely ignorant," Leia said, understanding Trent's point perfectly.

"And you would have every right to say so. Why? Because you have not only seen your brother wield the Force, but you are proficient yourself. But suppose for a moment that my earlier statement was correct and that the Force was simply the altering of energy states. You still wouldn't believe me, but eventually, when you found out for yourself, you would come to see the truth.

"Right now I am assuming that the people of the Denorid system have very limited space travel." Trent looked over at Wedge for confirmation, and the Admiral nodded. "They don't want to leave, because the constellations would change and they would be spiritually lost. Eventually that will change, and some brave soul will travel. Maybe this whole situation will provide the urge to travel into the stars, to meet with the gods and see for themselves what is wrong. But until they figure this out, all we can do is offer our condolences."

Leia looked at Wedge and Belsiphvin, and they both nodded. Leia looked at Ransig. "Are you sure that the Danzig system provides no danger what-so-ever to the people? The last thing that I want is for me to promise them safety and then have some unseen meteor shower rain down on them."

"As far as we can tell," Ransig said, "only one thing has left the Danzig system and that was Danzig 6. The fact that Danzig 6 beet the odds and actually did hit something is irrelevant. Space is so vast and the percent that matter takes up is so small that the only accurate numerical representation of it is zero. I don't need to explain to you the odds of throwing a ball and trying to hit something on a wall when that something takes up zero percent of the wall. The Denorid system is also blessed with a large sun, so that if anything did come close, the sun would draw it in."

Leia sighed, realizing that she was the one that was going to have to reason with the Denorians, and she was not looking forward to it. "Well," Leia said as she rose, "I guess that is just about it, unless anyone has anything else?" Everyone shook their head slowly. "Senator Trent, I would like you to write up a few ideas for me on how I can address this problem when I speak to them. I don't want to disgrace their religion in any way when I try to tell them that they're just stars." Trent nodded, and they all left the room.

***

"Master Skywalker."

Luke turned around slowly, still looking at the landscape in front of him. He had been looking at the old temples and pyramids and as he turned he saw the torn trees and tumbled stones left from the Imperial attack. Past the wreckage the construction efforts involved in building the new Academy facilities were well under way. Luke momentarily looked over the shoulder of the student who had addressed him as he surveyed the progress. "Yes, Jenstim?"

"Uh, sir, I think you better come have a look at what we found."

"Did you find another body," the student's master asked as he followed Jenstim down the rock pile. Luke carried a cane and still had a slight limp from the injuries he had received escaping from Hastrin. Luke hobbled slightly down the uneven terrain as he listened to Jenstim's answer.

"We found a body, but he has been dead for a while, and looked to have died on impact." While cleaning up the mess that the imperials had left behind, quite a few bodies were found with the wreckage, even three survivors. The Empire apparently didn't care much for their fallen in battle. Some things never change. "It's not the body that has caught our attention, though." Luke already knew this had to be the case. Every ship or walker that hadn't exploded had contained a body or two in it, and finding another body didn't warrant the attention of a Jedi Master. "The ship had apparently taken some large shrapnel through the cockpit that took out the pilot, but didn't destroy the ship. Some how the TIE managed to skim the treetops and land relatively unharmed. All of the computer records are still intact." At the sound of this, Luke tried to quicken his pace.

The Empire for all their stupidity in the design of their faulty fighting equipment had managed to do something right along the way. Whenever a ship was damaged to the point of disrepair, the computer records erased themselves, leaving any enemy that captured the doomed craft with a worthless piece of metal. Luke understood that there wasn't going to be much on the ship's computer, his own E-wing carried little more than star charts, but something would be better than nothing. A few months ago the Empire had been thought to be all but defeated, and then with a distress call from Hastrin and the disappearance of a Republic scouting fleet, the Empire had suddenly become a major power again. The Republic had had no warning, and with the destruction of the Dark Ring, the threat seemed to be over.

Luke knew that fleet strength didn't happen over night, and that it didn't disappear with the destruction of one star base, no matter how impressive that base was. If there had been that large of a fleet just waiting to attack the Republic, there might be more out there, and if Luke could find out a few possible locations, all the better.

Luke soon noticed that Jenstim wasn't taking him to the crash site, but to one of the new buildings that had just been completed. The interior of the building made Luke think he was back in Coruscant instead of on the jungle moon. It hadn't taken Luke long after the destruction of the old temples to realize that the Empire had really done him a favor. The initial idea of setting up an Academy away from all the distractions of technology and information was a much greater hindrance than accepting those things as a part of life. Besides, if you wanted to get away from it all, just step outside. You're still in a jungle.

The computer room had two other people in it, both of whom quickly and respectfully got away from the computer at which they had been pounding away. As Luke sat down in front of the terminal, he couldn't help but notice the glance that went between Jenstim and the two female students. That Jenstim didn't like the fact that Angelina and Angelic had been using the computer was obvious. Jenstim was old for his class, and he often thought that that age warranted him more authority than others. It was that attitude, Luke thought as he began to access the data chip that was recovered from the TIE that was keeping him back.

"There isn't too much there," Angelic said as star charts began to scroll down the screen.

"Yea," Angelina, Angelic's twin sister, agreed. "We have most of those star charts on record already."

Luke agreed with their assessment of the information, but he also saw a pattern to the charts. Luke had immediately saw by the size of the data chip that this TIE didn't have a tenth of the data storage capability that his E-wing had, but he also noticed something about the star charts that neither of the students had. The twins weren't pilots, and they had never used a computer to calculate a hyperspace jump. The star charts were listed in a very particular order. Luke scanned through them again and saw that they drew a straight line from the Danzig system to the Yavin system. Luke also understood the Imperials fleet tactics from long conversations with Han. While the TIE's didn't make the hyperspace jump themselves, the pilots were given the information in their TIE's so that if they got separated from the fleet, they would not be lost. By taking the data chip, all they had to do was commandeer a hyperspace ship, and they would be able to get back home.

Luke soon saw that the only information on this chip was information dealing with the attack on Yavin IV. There were the star charts, a brief battle plan, and the objectives. The last bit of information was an authorization code consisting of the name of the command ship, its code, her captain, and his code.

"Dark Fist SSD195EE6T, Commander Snotzenexer 1C2TZ57," Luke read the last section aloud. He turned to the three students. "Are any of you familiar with Imperial code?" All three shook their heads. "What is this universe's school system coming to?" Luke sighed to himself, knowing full well that he was their teacher. "I can't tell what the entire code means, but I do know a few things. First of all, the SSD in the Dark Fist's ID code stands for Super Star Destroyer, and if I'm right, I think that we only encountered two different Super Star Destroyers in the battle at the Dark Ring, so this was a pretty important ship, and therefore a very important Commander, uh," Luke glanced back at the screen, "Commander Snotzenexer."

Luke's mind began to race. He knew that one of the Super Star Destroyers escaped the destruction of the Dark Ring. There was a fifty-fifty chance that this was the same ship. Which also meant that there was a chance that this Commander Snotzenexer was still at large. All of the survivors that they had found at the Academy had been brought to Coruscant to be treated for their injuries and then put in prison. They had all undergone interrogations, but had revealed nothing, and with the Dark Ring destroyed they hadn't been pressed too hard. Now Luke knew they might have served directly under the highest ranked remaining Imperial officer who was also in command of a Super Star Destroyer. Although none of the men had cracked yet, none of them had been questioned by a Jedi Master. A trip to Coruscant was definitely in Luke's immediate future.

Chapter 3 "First Impressions"

Snotzenexer was walking around the bridge of his Super Star Destroyer, not able to help but feel a sense of pride with his possession. He tried not to puff his chest out too much as he strode from station to station, checking to make sure that each of the officers were executing their tasks to the best of their ability.

Snotzenexer felt the vibrations in the bridge deck as someone walked up behind him. The admiral could feel the sharp click of the officer's heels through the floor, and he kept the man at attention a little while longer as he gazed at the short-range radar. After twenty seconds, but before the man had a chance to clear his throat in a respectful trumpeting sound, Snotzenexer turned to face him. "The asteroid harvest is completed just as you ordered, sir," Commander Pearson said sharply.

"You have gathered at least seventy-five rocks, each weighing no less than fifteen hundred tons?" Snotzenexer questioned the commander's report.

Pearson looked slightly wounded at the admiral's distrust, but he didn't let it show in his reply. "Yes, sir. The explosives are being attached as we speak."

Snotzenexer paused, and decided not to query as to if they were being attached correctly. He figured that his wife would question these men to death in the next few days, as she would accompany them on their mission. Of course Sanson didn't know that yet, and Snotzenexer didn't really want to tell her.

On the far side of the bridge a turbolift opened and Eranadis and the afore mentioned Admiral Sanson exited, escorted by two storm troopers. Snotzenexer wondered what the troopers were for, but he figured that Sanson didn't totally trust their visitor. However, if everything Snotzenexer had heard about this man was true, two storm troopers would be a far cry from an adequate deterrence. Eranadis was looking about the bridge with none of his awe and wonderment hidden. Snotzenexer smiled at his almost childlike appreciation of his ship, but also realized that it was as much a show as anything else. It was more likely that Eranadis wanted them to take him for a kid who hasn't been around the block and who was impressed by just about anything. More than likely, he was fighting extreme boredom.

"You must be Admiral Snotzenexer," Eranadis said when he drew close. The young man extended his hand in a form of greeting that wasn't quite as respectful as a salute. Snotzenexer shrugged off the formalities and took the offered hand, appreciating the firm grip. "Admiral Sanson has spoken highly of you," he added as he turned back to look at his chaperone.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Eranadis. I have heard much ab-" Snotzenexer paused as he watched Eranadis do a slight double take as he looked back and forth between the admirals.

"You-" he stuttered. "You . . . You are, aren't you?" Eranadis asked Snotzenexer, a sly smile spreading across his face.

Sanson was totally lost, but Snotzenexer simply smiled and nodded his head. "The different names are only there to stay away from confusion and keep it under wraps." Eranadis nodded, soaking in this new information, about which Sanson was still in the dark. She was about to inquire as to the inside conversation, but the other admiral cut her off. "Perhaps we should go to a private room so we can talk."

"Sounds good. Oh, and please call me Eran."

"You may call us admiral," Sanson said sharply, and turned to walk toward the nearest meeting room. Snotzenexer pulled up beside her as Eran trailed behind slightly, looking at the bridge. "What was that all about?" she asked in a fierce whisper.

"He knew that we were married."

"How?"

Snotzenexer shrugged his shoulders. "I told you that he has some Force sensitivity."

Sanson looked over her shoulder and saw him fiddling with the long-range scanners. Eran abruptly ceased his fidgeting and quickened his pace when he noticed the female admiral's eyes on him. "I don't like him," she said as she turned back to her husband.

"I knew you wouldn't."

***

The three people sat at one end of the large conference table, a table that was designed to seat about five times the present attendance.

"Okay," Eran said, stealing either admirals thunder by opening the meeting before they had a chance, "let's assume that I know nothing-"

"A valid assumption," Sanson said under her breath.

"-and have no clue as to why you brought me here," he finished, paying no notice to Sanson's comment. This one would be a hard person to impress, he thought to himself.

"I have a better idea," Snotzenexer spoke before his ill-tempered wife had a chance to. He realized that while this young man was very strong and sure of himself, and that those were the skills they needed from him, they were also skills that would reduce his efficiency in taking orders from superiors. Snotzenexer didn't really care about the lack of respect that Eran was giving them, he had never been a big fan of formalities, but he also knew that most of those formalities were in place to teach underlings to respect their commanders. That respect then translated into obedience; and the obedience into efficiency. "Let's assume that you know everything, and that we only need to remind you of the task we have planned for you."

"In other words," Sanson interjected, refusing to be kept quiet, "you're on a need to know basis, and we'll let you know what you need know."

Eran remained impassive through this rebuke, thinking that he may have over stepped his bounds a little. He still didn't see any evidence that this new Empire was anything to be feared and respected. They didn't have a Vader or an Emperor. Eran took pause at that thought. He knew what his last name was and what the Emperor's last name had been. He also knew that he didn't have any of the skills of the old dictator. He wasn't even sure of his lineage. Eran looked at the two admirals seated next to him. Did they want him to be the next Vader? Did they want him to walk around in black pajamas, choking everyone he saw?

"We want you to perform an operation on Coruscant," Snotzenexer said, ending Eran's private conversation with himself. "We will provide you with a inconspicuous ship that will allow you to pose as a legitimate trader. We even have a shipment, for which you may keep the payment. The cargo is elaborate material and exotic fabric from the planet Fintron. Most of them are in the form of furniture or rugs. The Republic has finally gotten around to replacing all of the Imperial decorations in the older sections of the palace that are now finding use in the government's continual growth. They want to hang new banners and place more modern furniture in these rooms and want the best material possible. The wing being restored is mainly guestrooms and small meeting chambers, but it used to be the wing in which the Emperor kept all of his financial advisers. When the New Republic took over they seized all of the Emperor's funds and kept their own records on file on the same system the Emperor used.

"Now that they are turning that wing exclusively into living quarters, they are in the process of transferring the records to a different section of the palace. I want a copy of those records. I don't think you will be able to copy them without detection, so it might be wise of you to take as many things as possible to make it look like a simple robbery where the thief wasn't exactly sure what he wanted and just took everything."

"We don't want anyone killed or anything blown up," Sanson added, knowing the youth's destructive tendencies. "The Republic has too much on their hands to chase after a petty thief, but they might allocate a little more attention toward a murderer."

"How you plan on getting into the palace is your problem. If I understand their security procedures, all the doors will lock themselves and out going air traffic will be held up until the security problem is resolved." Snotzenexer looked at Eran, expecting the man to end his fast of speaking anytime.

"What of my pay."

Sanson looked furious, but Snotzenexer raised his hand, stopping any forth-coming verbal onslaught. Eran thought that she looked much different now than when he had first met her outside his former employer's headquarters. "In addition to the payment you will receive from your shipment and what you manage to pilfer from the palace," Snotzenexer paused, looking hard at Eran and telling him that this should be plenty, "you will receive one hundred thousand credits on your return."

"Fifty thousand up front and you have a deal."

"One hundred thousand," Sanson said, her voice as cold as the outside of a Star Destroyer, "all after a successful return, and I won't through you out of an air lock."

Eran managed to swallow the lump in his throat without too much sound. You don't bargain with these people. "Sounds good to me. And if I don't return successful?"

"May what ever god you believe in have mercy on your soul," Sanson replied with all sincerity, "because I won't."

Snotzenexer ended the painful silence. "Your ship is in docking bay seven. It should not be hard to find. It'll be one of the three ships that looks nothing like an asteroid."

Eran tried to let the oddity of that last statement slip by his inquisitive mind and rose from the table. "Well, I guess I'll be on my way then. See you guys in a week." With that, he left the room, eager to leave Sanson's presence.

The door had barely slid shut before Sanson turned to her husband. "He is an overblown, half-cocked, egotistical, -"

"He's also the best one man army in this sector, dear." Snotzenexer hoped the endearment went a little ways to calm his enraged spouse, because he had hoped her to be in a better mood than this when he told her of his plans.

"He better not screw anything up. If he even slightly alerts the Republic to our presence or involvement, I'll beat him so senseless, he won't even remember his last name." Sanson paused, remembering now the significance of Eranadis Palpatine's last name.

Snotzenexer saw and understood her pause and remembered that he had never really explained this young man's relation to the late Emperor. "The Force is hereditary, you know this. There is nothing special about its transfer from parent to child, and it acts like every other kind of hereditary gene. There are numerous accounts of Force strong parents who give birth to Force inept children and vice versa. The Emperor was seized by the Sith when he was only a child, leaving behind a brother and a sister who had no Force potential at all. It took me a while to track down all of the offspring of these two siblings and I mostly just found normal people living normal lives. When I came across Eranadis, the grandson of the Emperor's brother, I found a special operations expert working for a section of the government that deals with terrorist activity. Eranadis had never been wounded in the line of duty, and had a perfect record, if not a colorful one. To me it was obvious that the Force had remained dormant in his father and grandfather, only to come to fruition two generations removed.

"He won't become a Lord of the Sith as Vader was, and I don't even expect any kind of minor Jedi skills out of him. As far as I can tell, the Force simply augments his already impressive physical prowess." Sanson seemed to accept this explanation and she was visibly calmed from her previous disposition. "There was something else that I wanted to talk to you about, and I'm afraid you're not going to like it." Sanson looked at her husband with feared anticipation, for she had an idea what was coming. "I want you to accompany the Dark Fist to the Danzig system."

Sanson slammed her open hand on the table. "I knew you were going to do this to me!" Though they both had promoted themselves to admiral, they had also made a private decision as to the ranking between them. Even though Snotzenexer had been a commander and Sanson a captain in their previous campaign, they both knew that those ranks had been haphazard at best and Tallon and Thrawn had paid little attention to them. Sanson and Snotzenexer knew each other's strengths and weaknesses. Snotzenexer was a far superior strategist and planner, while Sanson possessed the technical mind and the ability to command a fleet. Since the rebuilding of the Empire had required more planning and less fighting, they had both agreed that Snotzenexer would be the one in superior command. Still, Sanson had the right to argue, though she knew she had no way out.

Snotzenexer already knew all of her complaints, and didn't want to have to go through the verbal recantation of them. "The Empire has a very repetitive history of giving inept commanders important assignments which they in turn screw up. The former leaders of the Empire thought that simply having the punishment of death hanging over their personnel's heads was enough to deter them from foul ups and insure success. When you attack a problem with the sole purpose of not wanting to fail, you are sure to also not succeed. I am not saying that Commander Pearson is not capable of this job, but I know that you are ten times more capable and I would have a certain measure of security knowing that the job would be done right."

Sanson listened to the speech, knowing everything thing that was saying to be true. "Pearson won't like it."

"I'm not trying to make friends; I'm trying to win wars."

Sanson smiled at the comment. "What will you be doing?" She knew that her husband had everything all planned out months in advanced and she was content to watch it unfold before her as it happened, trusting Snotzenexer's intellect.

"I plan on doing a little banking."

***

Leia sat in front of the monitor wearing her royal Alderaan robes and her hair done in an elaborate braid. She tried to keep her face calm as the monitor might turn on any moment, displaying her face to the Denorid system representative. Leia had a data pad in front of her displaying a list of suggestions from Senator Trent and she tried to commit them to memory while also trying to keep her eyes on the monitor.

A few moments later the face of a middle-aged man appeared in front of her and Leia smiled warmly toward him. "Let me introduce myself," the man said, "I am President Carn of the planet Trewist, the fifth planet in the Denorid system. I am pleased to speak with you President Leia Organa-Solo, so that we might discuss the matter at hand. We will be glad to assist you in any way possible, as long as the uniformity of our sky can be replaced."

Leia tried to not let her frustration show. Apparently when he had spoken to Senator Belsiphvin, he must have received the idea that the Republic would have to meet in order to decide the best way to fix the problem as opposed to whether or not to even attempt it. "I am also pleased to speak with you President Carn, and I want to let you know that if there's anything we can do to make this transition smoother for you, we will be glad to lend assistance."

Carn seemed puzzled by this comment. "I believe that the best course of action would be to simply return the stars to their God-given position as we had discussed earlier. Do you not agree?"

This wasn't going to be easy. "I know that this must be a very troubling time on your worlds, but you have to believe me that everything that can be done will be."

Carn was more than a little troubled at Leia's evasive diplomacy. "So the sky will be set aright?"

He's going to make me say it, isn't he. "I am afraid that the sky has been changed forever by the Empire, and that both of us will have to learn to live with these changes." Leia was using all the tricks she had learned. Let them think that you are going to be hurt just as much as they are. Blame everything on someone else. It didn't seem to be working.

"President Leia, I don't think you truly understand what has happened," Carn was managing to keep his voice calm. "The Mighty Hawk is blind and winter is only one two moons away. My people have lived and prospered under the same sky for many centuries and we will not allow any government to tell us that we must change our ways because of some minor explosion in space."

Leia couldn't begin to fathom his ignorance of the situation. The Dark Ring was hardly a minor explosion. "President Carn, I assure you that no harm will come to your people because of this. Our scientists-"

"Your scientist are mistaken. Have you ever seen the sky from the Seronid Peak on a clear night? Of course you have not. You can not know the beauty and wonder that the sight inspires. Now you are telling us that you will not fix it - refuse to fix it!"

"It can't be fixed!" Leia said, a little too loudly. "You must realize that if anything could be done we would do it, but we don't have the ability. It's not that we don't care, but-"

Carn had heard enough. "I understand completely. You think that because you are big and powerful that you can fly your huge ships anywhere, blowing things apart, but refusing to fix them when you are finished. And if some small, backward system gets hurt in the process, so be it. President Leia, I regret to say that our meeting is over. If anything happens to our peaceful way of life, I will hold you personally responsible." With that, the screen went blank.

"That could have gone better."

***

The ship dropped out of hyperspace, and visibility went from poor to worse. When traveling through space at speeds as great as or greater than that of light, visibly is poor simply because by the time you see something, you've already past it. Normal space is obviously more optically friendly, however it has it's own vision barriers.

"Great, you dropped us right in the middle of a nebula."

Vince ignored his friend's complaints and checked the charts. "It's not on the map."

"If you'll notice, Hastrin is on the map," Jon said, "but I bet you're not going to find it anywhere."

"I beg to differ," Bep spoke up from the back of the cockpit. "I'd care to wager that we are flying through what is left of Hastrin."

"I though that an exploding planet left a field of small rocks, not this kind of pea soup."

Vince examined the nebula they were floating through and then the statistics the computer had on Hastrin. "It says here that over two thirds of Hastrin was covered with ocean. Where do you think all that water went? Danzig 6 blew the planet into a fine dust and vaporized the oceans. The water molecules attached themselves the dust and are now floating around reflecting light."

"So it's kind of like walking through fog?"

"Yea, Jon, only I don't recommend stepping outside for a stroll."

The ship moved slowly through mist, heading toward prespecified coordinates. The ship was almost unrecognizable from its former self. The ship used to be an Old Republic carrier, but it had seen better days and was scheduled for the scrap heap, before Vince and Bep managed to convince the techs to let them have it. All of the circuits had been shot and none of the computer systems were within three decades of current, but the two pilots had simply wanted the frame. They would have replaced all of the innards even if it had been brand new, preferring their own workmanship to something someone else had built.

The resulting ship resembled a pregnant bird. They had elongated the front of the former boxy ship and made it not only more attractive, but also more battle worthy. They had decorated the front of the ship with salvaged turbo lasers from captured Star Destroyers. When Vince and Bep had shown the plans to some of the techies that helped them refit the ship, they had laughed and said that no ship that size could support the batteries needed to fire turbo lasers. True, batteries were huge cumbersome things that took a lot of maintenance. Vince had designed a type of energy flywheel, which spun anti-mater in a magnetic field. The lasers are fired by routing the hyperdrive through the weapons system and drawing the anti-matter out of the containment field with the inertia damper, and thus accelerating the anti-matter to light speed, propelling it though the laser cannon. When the anti-matter leaves the containment field it looses stability and dissolves into pure energy. The result was an energy source that lasts just as long the large batteries, but took up a one-thousandth of the room.

Increasing the livable space in the military ship had decreased the cargo room of the ship. The trio had their ships in the flight bay, and had added a very small tech shop for quick adjustments and repairs.

"I still can't believe this is how we are spending our vacation," Jon complained for the fifty-third time. "If we wanted to help the Republic, couldn't we have gone to Gensifery and helped with the clean up there?" Gensifery was a world with an enormous tropical region due to its almost non-existent tilt. The Imperials had bombed the planet from space as part of a trap for the Republic fleet a month ago. The three friends had spoiled that trap, but had to rush off to continue the fight against the Empire and had been unable to give a full effort to helping the clean up of the world.

Vince also wanted to help some of the victimized worlds, but he had an inkling that if Jon found himself on the tropical world, he would do more sight seeing than sight rebuilding. Vince also knew that the Republic had many different teams going to the ravished worlds, and he felt this private assignment a little more exciting. "Come on," Vince challenged Jon's complaint, "you can't tell me that you don't want to find out where those Imperials ran off to?"

"Sure I do," Jon said. "I haven't downed near enough of their TIE's yet, but what chance do we have? We were here over three weeks ago, surely the trail has gone cold by now."

"Coordinates don't change, my friend," Bep put in. "The Imperials left here in hyperspace, and our sensors got a clear read of those jump vectors. Chasing a fleet through hyperspace is impossible because they can make multiple jumps and have their computer calculate those jumps out ahead of time, while the pursuing fleet has no idea where the fleet is going after the first jump. However, if you can take your time, you can make a reasonable tracking effort."

"For example," Vince said as he was working with the nav computer, "we've reached the last known coordinates of the Super Star Destroyer, and along their hyperspace jump route is an asteroid field only a few giga klicks out."

"Which means they must have just made a micro jump out of system and then jumped somewhere else," Bep reasoned.

"Great, they could have jumped anywhere. There's no way that hyperspace residue will remain."

"True," Vince admitted, "but their choices are more limited than you think. For example, they didn't turn around, and they couldn't keep going in the same direction, because the asteroid field was blocking their path. Plus the Danzig system takes up at least three octants of the sky for light-years in any direction, and I seriously doubt that they ran back to the Dark Ring, so that just leaves three octants to pick from."

Jon's mood seemed to brighten at this information. "Well what are we waiting for, let's go!" The transformed carrier elongated and snapped into hyperspace.

***

"Hey kid! How are you doing?"

"Han . . ." Han listened as the reply hung in the air. Han was expecting some kind of age clarification or Jedi Master announcement, that usually followed Han's juvenile references to his thirty year friend, but Luke just shrugged his shoulders in indifference. "Hi."

Han was standing on the landing pad as Luke stepped away from his E-wing and gave the pad crew directions on where they could put his ship and for how long he thought he would be staying. Chewie and Leia were there as well, and brother and sister hugged and kissed a greeting, but Luke had only a handshake for the wookiee. "What brings you back so soon?" Leia asked. Luke had been to Coruscant three days ago for supplies and electronic equipment for the one finished building on Yavin IV, and while the eight hour hyperspace trip wasn't that long, Luke had come in his E-wing, which meant he didn't plan on bringing much in the way of supplies back with him.

"I have some information for Wedge and want to do a little research concerning it," Luke responded.

"Nice cane, Luke," Han said, and Chewie voiced similar mock praise towards the handicap. "Is this a new thing for Jedi Masters?"

"You mean something Yoda taught me?" Luke asked with a grin, but then realized that he was the only one that had seen the stooped, hobbled Master. "No, I'm just letting this heal on its own."

"He's human!" Han screamed, but immediately started to laugh. The group made their way down the hall from the landing pad and exchanged idle conversation. "I almost forgot," Han spoke up. "There's someone here that wants to see you." Luke stopped is forward limp a moment to look at Han questioningly. "She came in yesterday and said that she wanted to talk to you."

At the feminine pronoun, Luke knew exactly whom Han was talking about, and the Jedi Master rolled his eyes. He and Mara had been through a lot together, from the days when she wanted to kill him, to now when they were involved in this make-believe romance that everyone was in on except the two people most affected, namely: Luke and Mara. Luke still didn't know how to look at her. Was she a possible student, a former enemy, a friend, or just a simple trader? Luke checked that last item from his list. If Mara was anything, it wasn't simple.

***

"So what do you have?" Wedge asked. The fleet admiral walked into Luke's room and saw the Jedi Master was hard at work at the computer station.

"I see you have changed all the codes on me," Luke responded, looking up at Wedge for an answer.

Wedge smiled at Luke's frustration for a moment. "Don't tell me you're having problems with a computer? Just tell it to cooperate. Surely you can use your vast Jedi skills and get it to respond."

Luke smirked at his sarcasm but decided to humor him. He turned back to the counsel and said in an eerie voice. "No, my access is not denied. Yes, 'Owen' is the password you are looking for." The computer gave him a negative beep again, still waiting for a correct password to let in "Unknown User: Luke Skywalker."

Wedge chuckled that the most important person in the Republic was being denied access to simple records. "Here, let me help you."

"Pray do," Luke said, allowing all of his impatience to shine through the statement. Luke watched intently as Wedge entered his name and password. Luke tried to catch the last part, but Wedge curled his wrists as he typed, and Luke missed it.

"We can get you hooked up again, if you want," Wedge said as he stepped back. "We are doing some house cleaning and decided while we were at it that we might want to change the age old security system while we are at it."

"What kind of house cleaning?" Luke asked, moving his chair back in front of the monitor that Wedge had vacated after gaining access.

"The Emperor had set up an entire wing of the palace that was designed to handle all of his financial dealings. This consisted of all of his advisers and accountants. You wouldn't believe the kinds of things he did with his money. He had literally millions of spies, informants, smugglers, assassins and the like on payroll. He kept it all, as well as the enormous tax income, organized in this wing. Well, when we took over, we seized his holdings and simply kept his system up and running. It was a few years after we moved in and finally cracked his codes that we realized payments were still being made to over half of the Emperor's henchmen. Ever since we've been trying to reshuffle the mess into something useful. The result is that we now use less than a hundredth of the computers and filing systems to organize our financial holdings. It was decided that the other ninety-nine percent of the computers could be better used elsewhere, and we decided to just evacuate the whole wing and turn it into guest quarters. In fact, that's where Mara is stayi- Did anyone tell you that Mara is here?"

Luke nodded. "I know. And I already heard that she wants to see me."

"Well we thought that our computers would be vulnerable to hackers during the transfer, so we upgraded our system before. We gave everyone a new account. And as each qualified person made a trip to Coruscant, we upgraded their account. I guess you got lost in the shuffle. Do you want your old password?"

Luke wasn't listening anymore, as he had finally found what he wanted. "Wedge can you tell me the difference between these signals?" Wedge bent down to look over Luke's shoulder to see what he had on the screen.

"Those are all of the messages we intercepted from the Imperials during the battle at the Dark Ring. What do you want to look at this for?"

"Can you tell me what the difference is between these messages?" Luke asked again, ignoring Wedge's question and pointing to two different messages.

"Yea. This one is a narrow band signal, meaning that it was aimed at a single ship or a group of ships. This one over here is a wide band that sends the message out in all directions. They're all gibberish because we don't have the transponder codes to translate them."

"I have a code from one of the Super Star Destroyers. Is there a way for you to input the code and see what if any of these messages came from that ship?"

Wedge thought for a short while. "Sure. I'll just create a dummy location on the net and have the computer send each of these messages to that location. The computer should automatically search for an identification of the sender, just like in all of our ships. It will scroll through all of the known passwords, and, not finding the correct one, will prompt the user to enter the password."

Luke backed away from the console. "She's all yours."

After a few moments Wedge had the transfer set up and activated it. After the computer searched for a translation, it asked for the ship code. "You got that ID on you?" Wedge asked. Luke handed Wedge the data pad to which he had transferred the information on the TIE memory chip. "It looks like you need both the commander's code and the ship's." Wedge entered the ship's code and then the commander's. The message beeped negative. Wedge reversed the order with the same result. He spent the next few minutes entering as many different possibilities as he could think of, all coming up negative. "It's possible, in fact very likely, that this message isn't from the Dark Fist," Wedge said, looking at the name of the ship. "We intercepted over a hundred different messages." Wedge hit cancel and moved onto the next message. With all of the combinations Wedge had entered stored in the computer, the system automatically cycled through them. "This could take a while," Wedge said as the next message also came up negative. "How's the cleanup going?" he asked, turning away from the computer as it continued its automatic loop and changing the topic of conversation to the academy.

"It will be a while before we get over the losses," Luke replied. "We lost quite a few of the records, and three students. Over the past few years we haven't exactly had a huge list of enrollment applications. I guess we'll get back on our feet again, but it will take some time. What about the fleet?"

"We are fast healers. After every big battle there is always willingness to join the military. I mean everyone wants to be part of the winning team. We lost quite a few ships, but they are being replaced as we speak, and our resources are very vast."

The two old friends lapsed into silence, but were startled by an unfamiliar beep from the computer. Wedge spun around in his chair. "Well, it looks like you're in luck. We have a match. Wouldn't you know it's the last message."

"What does it say?"

"Not much really. It is an order for a mandatory hyperspace jump to specific coordinates."

"Can you identify those coordinates," Luke asked.

"It looks like Hastrin," Wedge said after a few moments.

"When was this transmission sent?"

Wedge looked at the time stamp on the translated message and did a few mental calculations as he realized what Luke was getting at. "It was sent just a few moments before the heavy space hit."

Luke's mind was racing now, trying to sort through everything he knew. "So you are trying to tell me that the commander of this Super Star Destroyer ordered a full retreat during a route, and before the star went nova."

"It looks like that, doesn't it."

"There is no way he could have figured out what you had been up to, could he?"

Wedge thought about all that had happened and started to shake his head. "There were a few minor things that later analysis might have been able to turn into a hypothesis as to our game plan, but I have no idea how this," he paused as he looked at the data pad in his hand, "Commander Snotzenexer could have figured it out in the few short moments he had."

"Well this is definitely the ship that made it away from the Dark Ring and then again from Hastrin," Luke said. "It looks like we might have another Thrawn on our hands. From all appearances, this commander has a very quick mind, is in control of a Super Star Destroyer, and has about thirty Imperial class Star Destroyers at his disposal."

"Actually," Wedge piped in, "I don't even think that Thrawn was that well equipped."

"The security increase was a good idea, Wedge, but I think you are going to have to over-haul everything. With the Republic as big as it is, we are definitely vulnerable."

"I agree totally."

Chapter 4 "Hostile Takeover"

Admiral Snotzenexer walked down the sidewalk underneath a glowing sun, which reflected pleasantly off of the surrounding structures. He was on Iom, the smallest and most densely populated planet in the Varion system. Snotzenexer looked up at the sun and then of to the east and the ominous storm clouds that were approaching. He smiled to himself, glad that the weather was so accurately predicted on this planet where nature was so chaotic.

Life on Iom had only become commonplace in the last two hundred years, and already its infrastructure rivaled that of Coruscant. Snotzenexer laughed at the ludicrous comparison. Sure, Iom rivaled Coruscant the same way the moon rivals the sun for the brightest skylight. It might be one of the closest competitors, but it was still a long way off. Iom had only three or four distinct layers of construction covering most of the planet, while they had lost track of the number of Coruscant layers a long time ago.

In a galaxy where exploration was a continual process, rich planets become a commodity. At first people thought that it was profitable to mine the recourses on a newly discovered planet and then bring them back home where life had been around for a millennia or two. Granted, the weight of a cargo matters little in the gravity-less vacuum of space, but because the recourses were most often used for planetary construction, it was soon decided that it was easier to bring the people to the recourses than vice versa.

This was the case with Iom. It was the smallest and most distant planet in a solar system that boasted twelve satellites in constant orbit around a large sun. Originally two of these twelve planets had a breathable atmosphere, and Iom was not one of them. It wasn't until a permanent colony had been settled, that it was discovered what a truly rich planet Iom was. It had no air and little atmosphere because it had no water on the surface. However on the first deep drilling expedition the dry exterior was pierced and then the superheated water that had been kept under constant, extreme pressure exploded from the ground, rupturing a hole in the surface several hundred kilometers across.

After morning for the loss of the drilling expedition members, the true benefit of the water was discovered. Beneath the surface, the water had remained pressurized, but as soon as the magma seal was broken, a geyser of steam shot up into the stratosphere. The hydrogen and oxygen in the water joined the already present nitrogen, and in a mater of hours, the planet was livable for several of the galaxy's less prolific life forms. After five more months and seven more drills, settlers no longer had to build domed colonies. Ten years later, farming was being done.

Snotzenexer looked around at the endless sight of buildings, seeing that the wide-open farmland was a pleasant, but distant memory of this planet. Once the metal ore that had made Iom interesting in the first place started to be extracted, buildings rose like Encharion roots in the spring. This planet was now the political and economic hub of the five neighboring systems. Snotzenexer was walking toward the reason for Iom's economic authority: The Varion Imperial Bank.

The admiral couldn't help but chuckle at the name. He had done his research well to discover the history of this planet, and he had found that at no time did the Empire ever have any influence in this system. Snotzenexer knew of other such organizations with "Imperial" in their name and soon came to realize the cleverness behind the misleading titles. The Empire was so all encompassing when it was in power that it often lost track of its vast holdings. In the event that they should stumble across the Varion system, the residents wanted to let the oppressive government think that they had already gained control of this system and move on. Well, the Empire never did have control of the system but it was Snotzenexer's job to change all of that.

As the Imperial admiral walked through the large double doors of the huge banking complex, he took one last look at the sky to see that the dark clouds were almost on top of the tall building. One thing that covering the entire surface of a planet with metal and power wires did was that it played havoc with the weather systems, especially the electric storms. Coruscant had faced the problem too, but their solution to the problem was rather crude: build above the weather layer. Iom was still not quite to that level, but they had found other ways to deal with the problem.

Snotzenexer looked at the impressive lobby to the intergalactic bank and was impressed. The huge chandelier suspended from the ceiling was the size of a TIE bomber and the lighting surrounding the crystal suspension was incredible. The interior of the room was done in all wood, or at least would paneling, and looked far more inviting that the normal, dull, durasteel that dominated the decor of most other establishments. This building obviously wanted you to feel safe, and thus, in turn, wanted you to feel that your money would be safe as well.

Snotzenexer was dressed in a fine suit that tried to look as civilian as possible, so it startled him a little as the first person he talked to referred to him as sir. "Sir, may I help you?"

"Yes, I'd like to open an account. I've just arrived in system and I'd like to get myself dug in, so to speak."

"Are you an investor then?" the attendant asked, leading Snotzenexer through an entryway and into a large collection of desked tellers.

"I guess you would call me entrepreneur of extreme proportions."

"May I inquire as to the amount of the account you'd like to open?"

"How is that important?" Snotzenexer asked. "You advertise to treat all customers equally, regardless of their financial status."

The man smiled at Snotzenexer. "Ah, yes, well we might treat everyone equally, but that doesn't make them equal, does it?" He knew that he wouldn't be insulting Snotzenexer with that comment. "I have a hunch that you might be needing more attention and information than a simple deposit warrants."

Snotzenexer mentioned a sum. The attendant had been prepared for multiple digits, but he gasped slightly as he tried to work out all the commas in the number Snotzenexer had mentioned. "I guess I was right."

Snotzenexer noticed that the man now hurriedly made a straight line for the furthest desk at the end of the long room. The admiral saw that he was now on the top of everyone's list as far as priority and he liked it that way. The attendant spoke briefly with the teller before taking his leave.

"Good afternoon," the teller said, rising from his seat and extending his hand out over his desk. "Smillen tells me that you wish to set up an account with us, uh . ." the man paused in search of a name.

"Snotzenexer. Alex Snotzenexer," the admiral responded, grabbing the man's hand in a firm handshake.

"Well, sir, my name is Harvin Sherd. You may call me Harvin."

Snotzenexer recognized the name from his research and knew that this was no simple bank teller, but one of the two assistants to the president of the bank. "Alex is fine," Snotzenexer replied, though it pained the military leader to do so.

"I'm told this will be a long term establishment. How did you want to deposit the funds?"

"I have recently sold several plots of land off in the Ewrien system, and am suspending payment until I have an account to which I can have the funds wired. I also have several other accounts in systems that I no longer plan to frequent. I plan on closing those accounts and wanted to set up an efficient way of transferring the records and interest rates on some of my long-term holdings. I also have quite a bit of hard currency that I wish to-" Snotzenexer paused as the lights flickered slightly in the building. Someone not as alert as the Imperial Admiral might not have noticed the ever-so-slight fluctuation in brightness, but Snotzenexer had been waiting for it. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Harvin asked, truly perplexed, but a quick glance at his computer screen told him the answer. "Oh, did the lights flicker? I never notice it anymore. We are having a lightning storm outside. We get them quite often."

Snotzenexer tried to look worried. "Is the bank safe? I mean is there any danger of loosing records from the strikes?"

Harvin saw that he was going to have to quell this wealthy, yet cautious investor's doubts quickly or risk loosing business. "No, everything is quite safe. The power goes off for half a second, and then goes back on. We have most of the smaller systems, like the lights, switch to back up power. I'm surprised you even noticed the flicker."

"But what about electronic break-ins? When the system is down, aren't you vulnerable?"

"Someone would have to have incredible reflexes or be able to predict the strikes, because our system is down for less than a second, and then reboots in about two seconds. No one can get in while the system is rebooting because it is off line. In order to get in in that fraction of a second is really quite impossible. Besides, the timing of lightning is purely random and no one could guess it, every computer in the building goes down during that time, and there is no outside lines into this building."

Outwardly Snotzenexer sighed and relaxed. Inwardly he glanced at his watch and hoped that Harvin would be proved wrong in about seventeen seconds.

***

High above the bank, deep inside the ominous storm, an indescribable void filled the center of the cloud. If any birds had been dumb enough to fly about in the storm, they would have taken serious pause at this unexplainable hole in the otherwise very dark interior. There seemed to simply be a large area that had been cleared of everything. This storm cloud appeared to be hollow, with a very placid center. If the birds looked more intently, they would have seen that this hollowed out shape looked an awful lot like a Star Destroyer.

Aboard the cloaked ship, the commander was getting ready to discharge the first of his many planned "lightning bolts." The shield generators had been modified to set up a highly charged static field, which could be discharged to the building below at any time. "Ten seconds," a lieutenant stated, as the computer was taking care of the countdown. The entire lightning display was pre-programmed into the ship's computer, and with everyone's chronos synchronized, the entire bank unit knew precisely when each bolt would strike.

A few meters above the bank, a second cloaked ship hovered. The transport held twelve men ready to take over the entire bank. Four gunners had their sights trained on the four, rooftop cameras. The computer was controlling the firing mechanism of each weapon, and once the gunners had locked their sights on the rotating cameras, the aiming was automatic. At exactly 2 minutes and 27 seconds past the hour, lightning struck the huge lightning rod and all four guns fired at the cameras.

***

"Blast it!"

"What is it Griel?" the young man asked as he turned away from his security screen.

"That last blast took out the roof cameras. You know what that means, Jearr?"

"We get to file a report about the inadequate equipment the bank is using," Jearr said. This was the third time in five storms that the cameras had gone down.

"I wish. No, it means that yours truly and the rest of the tech staff get to replace them. You just wait till you've been here for a few more months and you'll get to join us."

"Hey look at the bright side," the youth told his older co-worker, "at least they let you guys wait until the storm is over before they send you up there. As big a stickler as this place is about security, you'd think that they'd have you run up there now."

"No one's going to try and break in to this place through the roof during a storm. That would be suicide," Griel said.

"I guess you're right. It'd be a nice time to try it though."

***

"Why don't I show you the vault?" Harvin had managed to notice that last light flicker and he thought that he should show this potentially valuable client the whole workings of the bank.

"I'd like that," Snotzenexer replied, and got out of his seat to follow the man. "On the way, could you inform me as to the power structure in the bank. I mean who is responsible for keeping this place running?"

"It's funny you should ask," Harvin said as he stood before the doors to a turbo lift, waiting for it to arrive at their floor. "The president of the bank is the Honorable Serint Frosch. He has two assistants: Reckin Younst and myself."

"Only three people to run a bank that controls the majority of the credit transfers for five systems?" Snotzenexer asked skeptically.

"It is not that difficult," the man said. "We only rule in the major operations of the bank, such as dealings with the eight governments that we operate under, the two dozen mega businesses, and the manipulations of the bank's personal holdings such as stocks and bonds. All of the individual banking takes place through tellers and clerks who are connected by an enormous computer network that controls everything. Everything is under the careful eye of the almighty microchip. We just supervise."

"Are all three of you in the bank at all times?"

"We each have living quarters here, yes, and none of us have any family. This bank is kind of like our family." The turbo lift arrived and both men stepped in after the opening doors.

"Kind of sounds lonely," Snotzenexer said. "Do you ever get away from it?"

"Actually Reckin is on a little vacation in the Tristoff sector. I think he said he was going to try his hand at some of the gaming establishments out there. He also mentioned something about getting in some hydro skiing."

Snotzenexer nodded in faked amusement as if this was news to him. Actually, he had already planned for Reckin to have a very unfortunate boating accident that would cut both his vacation and his life a little short.

***

Two of the dozen men that poured out on the rooftop of the bank ran quickly over to the satellite dish that sat on the corner of the roof furthest from the lightning rod. They had only about five minutes before the next planed strike and had a lot to prepare. The communications wire that came out of the back of the dish was soon exposed and the insulation removed. To most people the swarm of wires looked like a nest of multicolored snakes, swarming over each other in a rainbow of confusion. To Fren and Werlimp it all made sense. Snotzenexer had managed to steal the construction plans for the bank from the city planner. While Fren began stripping certain wires and organizing cables, Werlimp was getting out a portable module that would simulate a bank security computer.

Fren produced a small metal box from his pack and began feeding the bank's wires into one end, while Werlimp fed his computer's wires into the other end. The box had a small liquid crystal display on it, and the duo watched as the countdown slipped under five seconds. When the timer reached zero, the box would splice the two groups of wires together instantaneously, sneaking into the net when the power was down. The rest of the group was also paying attention to their own chronos and took adequate cover for the next strike. Six seconds later, Werlimp's computer rebooted with the rest of the bank's systems.

The next strike was due in 39 seconds, and Fren scrambled to get another one of the wire connectors out of his bag. He hastily found the six wires he needed and fed the bank's heat, motion, and security cameras, for the turbolift shafts and ventilation ducts into one end of the box. Werlimp prepared his end of the box and after the next strike, they controlled the security devices in all the crawl spaces of the bank.

Werlimp made a thumbs-up sign to the ten other men who were poised over the vertical shaft of a lift that was undergoing repairs. It had been sabotaged earlier in the week.

***

In the security room, a small mouse that the computer had been tracking in an air duct on the fifteenth floor, disappeared from the computer. Normally this would send off alarms all over the bank, but Werlimp's computer was smoothing things over, and Griel was paying too much attention to the security camera in the lobby, eyeing up a beautiful young woman who had just entered the building.

***

The lift opened and Snotzenexer looked at the vault room. There were two guards standing at ridged attention right past the exit and two more standing by the vault. The room in front of them had an eerie atmosphere and Snotzenexer could immediately feel all of the sensors that existed here. The temperature was no doubt regulated and the were motion sensors all over the floor as well as vibration sensors. Snotzenexer took his time looking around, realizing that he was a little ahead of schedule. He was supposed to have suggested going to the vault, but Harvin had made the suggestion for him, and now they had another seven minutes before the next scheduled strike.

"It's quite impressive," Snotzenexer said after several moments.

"I'm glad you approve. This is the most secure room in any direction for one hundred light years. There are always four guards on duty during bank hours and the camera system operates all the time. After we close, the room is monitored by temperature, motion, sound, and vibrations. Actually," Harvin grinned, "it is probably much safer to try and rob the bank during broad daylight. This place is basically impenetrable during the night. All the systems down here are run off an independent power source that can't be disconnected or tapped into, and we are one hundred feet underground with only two turbo lift shafts leading to this room."

"Two?" Snotzenexer asked, looking back and seeing only one door.

"There is another shaft behind the one we rode down in. The lift is shut down right now for repairs. Do you want to see the inside of the vault?"

Snotzenexer didn't have to answer and simply gestured for his guide to lead the way. They had remained on the landing that existed right after the exit to the turbo lift in between the first pair of guards. Now they descended the two short steps leading down to the tiled floor that was the preamble room to the vault. Snotzenexer felt the weird texture of the sensitive floor through his boots and believed that he could feel the prying eyes of the hidden cameras as the two walked the thirty feet toward the front of the vault.

Behind the two men and the alert guards four men had reached the sub level of the bank through the unused turbo shaft. They moved carefully, trying to be as silent as possible regardless of the nonexistence of the electronic security. They knew Snotzenexer and Harvin would distract the guards in the vault area, but that didn't mean that the senses of the professional guards could just be ignored. Each man kept this in mind as they crept into four of the six ventilation ducts leading into the vault area. These ducts were abnormally large in order to keep the area at a temperature of zero degrees during off-hours. It was much easier to detect the heat of an intruder if the temperature was substantially low, especially with countless cold blooded sentience that would be thrilled to get their sticky appendages on the stacks of credits stored behind the mammoth vault door.

Snotzenexer and Harvin now stood in front of this door, and the admiral had to swallow his anticipation as he listened to another explanation of the bank's security measures that the supreme strategist had already researched. "This door is made of three feet of trillium. It would take an industrial strength diamond blade to make a mark on it, and you would wear out over 300 of those blades before you would be able to cut all the way through it. The door has a hollow layer in the center that is filled with vexon gas. Are you familiar with vexon gas?" Snotzenexer nodded, though no one was truly familiar with the volatile gas. It was discovered accidentally when a scout ship flew through a nebula of the stuff. Vexon gas could eat through anything save high carbon durasteel alloys and the few metals that ranked higher on the integrity chart. What it did to flesh was nothing short of catastrophic. In its liquid state it made human flesh look like ice in boiling water. In its gaseous state, it ate the body inside and out by using the respiratory system to augment its potential surface area. Needless to say, anyone who was foolish enough to try to drill into the vault wouldn't have enough time to realize their mistake when they hit the middle of the door.

Snotzenexer didn't need to glance at his wrist to know what the time was. His mental clock was usually good to about five seconds, and he knew without looking that the next strike was coming in about a minute and a half, but he looked anyway. Harvin noticed the gesture, and understood it for what it was meant to be taken as. "On a tight schedule?"

"Always."

"I understand," Harvin said. The man walked right up to the door, performed a retina scan and entered a seven-digit code.

***

Up on the roof, Werlimp's computer notified him that Harvin was opening the door. Werlimp traced the eye scan as the computer cross-referenced the retina pattern with a small, encoded database. Snotzenexer had been able to obtain Harvin's retina pattern by breaking into the very low security computers at the local optometry. It was amazing how easy information was to come by if you knew where to look. With Harvin's encoded retina pattern and the uncoded one, Werlimp's computer was easily able to crack the encription and immediately translated the seven-digit code. With the code broken, the Empire now had access to the database and could edit it at their leisure.

***

"Good afternoon, Chief Harvin Sherd," an unseen speaker said as the vault door swung open. Harvin glanced at Snotzenexer with a poorly hidden smile. "I spent some time in the Empire many years ago," he said in answer to the unspoken question regarding the title with which the computer had addressed him.

The admiral tried to look impressed with the lowly military title, but failed miserably. The time was fast approaching when Snotzenexer would no longer have to treat this man with respect. Snotzenexer stepped into the vault quickly, not wanting to tempt fate with delays. Both men were completely inside the vault before Snotzenexer took the time to regard the interior of the huge room.

The bank apparently liked to flaunt its wealth. The vault was large enough to contain three chambers. The first and the one that held Snotzenexer's attention at the moment was by far the most impressive. Jewels, diamonds, and the largest chunks of precious metals that the veteran of the Empire had ever seen littered the walls that were mysteriously transparent. Each of the some two hundred items was imbedded in a wall, which appeared to be made entirely of glassine. Snotzenexer knew better though, and decided that the walls were most likely made of a high grade of transparasteel, if not for anti-theft reasons, than for protection against potential vexon gas.

The room was uniquely lit, with the light from below and above. With the floor and ceiling also transparent, there were lights imbedded in each. The lights above were dim, and there merely to illuminate unsightly shadows on the ceiling, but the effect on the displayed valuables was impressive. The display resembled the eerie presentation that putting a glow rod under ones chin at night around a campfire yields.

The second chamber contained about a thousand individual safe deposit boxes in which esteemed members of the bank could keep valuables. The third room held massive amounts of credit chips of every size and value.

As soon as both men were fully in the vault Harvin turned around and closed the huge door. "Do you mean to lock me in?" Snotzenexer asked with a light-heartedness in his voice that denied the accusatory statement. Harvin smiled back, not knowing the irony that would be played out in a few minutes.

"The door needs to be closed for the computer to reboot. It is much safer to close the door manually, not knowing when the lightning may strike. You wouldn't want to get caught leaving the vault when the door suddenly decides to swing shut." Snotzenexer nodded, though he disagreed with part of Harvin's assessment of the situation. The admiral did know when the lightening was going to strike. The next strike would come in about forty-two seconds and then another one fifty-seven seconds later. At least that is what Snotzenexer had planned. He would only find out later that almost everything fell apart on the next strike.

***

Up on the roof, Werlimp was busy recording fifty-seven seconds of the motionless vault guards. The room had to be empty, and the vault door had only just closed a few moments ago, giving him sixty-three seconds to work with. Werlimp had begun recording as soon as the door had sealed itself and was thinking through what he needed to do during the last six seconds. He needed to play back the recording at the next strike, as there would be a lot of action in the room that they didn't want the security personnel to know about.

***

One hundred feet underground four men were poised right inside the air conditioning vents. Each of them had their modified blasters trained on one of the guards. All the guards in the bank had small transmitters that they wore to keep track of their life signs and location. Seeing as how the guards were going to be unconscious in a short while, each of the four members of the strike force had identical transmitters that were programmed to activate at the next strike. Werlimp had long ago discovered each of the guard's transmitter frequencies and standard life sign patterns and had imputed that information into each of the transmitters the men carried.

Their modified blasters would also fire automatically at the next strike. The blasters had been altered to send out an ion pulse that would not only short out the guards' transmitters, but also their neurological pathways, putting them in a temporary coma. The one problem that the Empire had anticipated was that when the lightening struck and the blasters fired, the real guards' transmitters would be disabled and the new ones would be activated, placing each one of the guards inside the wall. The four members crouched in the vents knew this, and they also knew that while the power fluctuated for only half a second, it took anywhere from one and a half to two seconds for the security computers to come back on line. They each hoped that would be enough time to spring from their hiding places and assume the old guards' positions so their transmitters wouldn't disagree with the camera's motionless representation of the men.

***

Back on the roof Werlimp had just finished recording the fifty-seven seconds and quickly programmed to intercept the real images from the vault cameras and send ins- lightning struck.

***

"What was that?!" the commander of the Star Destroyer in the clouds yelled. That strike had come fully three seconds early.

"It wasn't -" the lieutenant wasn't able to finish as another bolt streaked across the sky. This second one was right on time, and the commander realized what had happened. Lightening struck whenever the electric difference between the sky and the ground became so great that it had to discharge. When the huge ship had been discharging earlier, it had been doing so so frequently that the sky never had a chance to build up a charge of its own. But this last time in between strikes was so long that a natural strike had found its way into the mess.

***

Werlimp's fingers froze up for a second. His mind didn't want to believe that his fellow officers had screwed up. As his mind continued to wander, his fingers finished their task just in time as the second and correct strike nailed home.

***

Around the vault, the eight men were oblivious to the lightening outside. On the second strike, the four guns hit their targets and three of the men came bursting out of their vents to assume the correct positions. The fourth Imperial paused ever so slightly. He had been paying too much attention to his target. Right before he had to fire, the guard had been scratching his back. The gunmen knew what was going to happen, and he knew that the guard hadn't been scratching his back when Werlimp had recorded him, and it would look very odd to whoever was watching if the guard instantly ceased his scratching right as lightning struck. This concern made him slow out of the vent, but in reality saved him. He arrived over the guard half a second after the security computers finished booting up.

***

Jearr was watching the guard scratch his back, and started to turn to Griel to comment on this unprofessional behavior when the lightening struck. Griel was already half turned away from the screen when he saw that the guard had resumed his posture almost instantly in the half second that it took for the picture to come back. He also saw motion from one of the guard's motion detectors. His mind immediately told him that there was nothing wrong. The guard had moved quickly and the motion detector had even detected it. It was just a coincidence that it had happened right as the lightening struck. Jearr's mind was just a little too dull to catch the fact that the motion from the transmitter had come half a second after the still image on the screen had resumed its rigid posture.

***

The storm was clearing now and the cloaked Star Destroyer had to move a little further away from the bank to keep its strange blank void covered by clouds. It had one more lightening bolt to discharge, and it needed to be relatively close to the bank to do so. After that, the huge ship would return to the asteroid field as fast as it could. The small scout ship that had deposited the twelve men on the roof earlier was planning on sticking around though. After the next strike it was going to put down on the landing pad on top of the bank.

***

In the vault Snotzenexer smiled that none of the alarms had gone off in the bank. He knew that that meant everything had gone smoothly and the bank was now his. All he had to do was take it. He had to wait another fifty-seven seconds for the four men outside to stash the unconscious guards in the ventilation shaft and reattach the vents to the wall. Snotzenexer sincerely hoped that the men would remember to leave their transmitters on the floor while they moved the bodies. It was a silly concern, the admiral knew, but this close to victory, it was stupid mistakes that cost lives.

Snotzenexer thought that he somehow sensed the last strike, and gave an audible sigh of satisfaction that the task was complete. The cameras outside the vault should now be showing four motionless guards of similar build and identical uniforms to the previous four guards. Also, at several other places throughout the building groups of old guards should now be replaced with his own officers.

"I think I've seen enough," Snotzenexer said suddenly. Harvin looked at him curiously. He had just been in the middle of an explanation about the security measures taken with deposit boxes when Snotzenexer had cut him off. "Can we go now?"

"Uh, sure." Harvin didn't really know what to make of this sudden rudeness that his potential client was showing. He tried to think of what he must have said wrong as he walked up to the door and bent low to allow his retina to be scanned. Harvin didn't even notice that his eye hadn't been recognized as he entered his code, and therefore was quite surprised when the door didn't open. "We must have just had a strike and it is rebooting," Harvin offered. He tried again, this time paying attention to what he was doing and to the results he was getting. "That's odd."

"Perhaps if I gave it a shot."

"No," Harvin replied, not realizing that the admiral had been telling and not asking, "it is only programmed to respond to certain bank personnel. There is no way that it would rec-" Harvin didn't get to finish has Snotzenexer forcefully pushed the slightly overweight man out of the way.

Harvin didn't have an immediate response to this very unusual behavior, but simply watched as this strange patron tried his luck with the retina scanner. Snotzenexer entered the seven-digit code that had been agreed upon earlier, and the vault swung open.

"Good evening Admiral Snotzenexer."

Harvin gawked at the computer's response. "I too have spent some time in the Empire's service," Snotzenexer responded.

Harvin knew immediately that this man was not here to deposit the imaginary sum he had previously mentioned, but had more devious ulterior motives. "Guards! Stop him!" Harvin ran out of the vault to watch the guards carry out his order, but instead saw the four men saluting the admiral.

"Good evening, Admiral."

Snotzenexer returned the nod and looked back at Harvin. "I think you should come with me. We need to pay your boss a little visit." Harvin was speechless. On closer examination he could see that he didn't recognize any of the guards in the room. Harvin was too surprised to do anything but follow Snotzenexer back to the turbo lift.

Once inside the lift, Snotzenexer reached for the top button. "You can't go there," Harvin said. As the lift computer beeped at Snotzenexer, requiring a code to enter the restricted area of the bank, Harvin seemed to get a measure of his confidence back. Snotzenexer deflated that misplaced feeling by smoothly punching in a five-digit code, which the computer readily accepted.

"What's going on?" Harvin asked. "Who are you?"

Snotzenexer turned to look at him, wondering how much, if anything, this man needed to know. "I have just taken over your bank. It will all be made official in a few minutes. Don't worry, I don't plan on replacing you right away. I will need someone on board who knows how all the little things work."

"What are you talking about? You don't have control of the bank." Harvin slowly began to understand what this stranger was talking about. "Emergency stop code alpha seven oh four." The lift kept moving. "Security alert authorization Harvin five nine two." The lift kept moving and the alarms remained silent.

Harvin kept quiet for the rest of the trip. He knew where they were going, and this stranger was going to have a much tougher time than he expected. The lift came to a stop, and the two men stepped out. There were two guards stationed in front of the door to President Frosch's private quarters, but before Harvin could issue them a command, they were already saluting the admiral at his side. How had this man replaced all of his security officers with his own without setting off one alarm? There were over fifty security personnel in this bank. Many of them were in high traffic areas. His respect was mounting for this Admiral Snotzenexer as they walked right up to the president's door and opened it.

***

Serint Frosch was sitting behind his desk staring out the window at the storm. The doctors had told him that his stroke last week was due to stress. Serint didn't want to believe them. His blood pressure was fine, and he loved his job. He also loved his health, and he thought that if spending more time off his feet and away from the chaos that was the bank would help him, then he was going to try it.

Watching a storm always seemed to calm the president of the huge money regulating facility, and this was a particularly volatile one. A few minutes ago two lightening bolts had struck in quick succession, lighting up the sky quite impressively. Due to the fine construction of the bank and its walls, only slight rumbles could be heard, but the engineers and architects haven't yet gone so far as to eliminate light from the outside as they had sound. This storm was just like the others though. Lot's of wind and lightening, but no rain.

Serint missed his home back on Garinth. He had a house on the beach where he could watch the storms come in from the sea. The whitecaps broke spectacularly on the beach while the first big raindrops hit the sun-bleached sand, splashing the white powder as if it too were made of water. The wind would pick up, and the rain would come down in sheets. With no geographical landmarks to hinder its progress inland, the storms usually passed quickly, leaving behind small river deltas all over the beach. As a boy he would run out into the mud despite his mother's wishes, seeing no reason why he couldn't have at least as much fun in the sand as the storm just had.

The old man sighed. Those days were long gone now, and play was something of the past. He needed to get cracking on the Illyan portfolio. Serint swiveled his chair away from the window and began to sort through the jumble of papers on his desk. The door opened suddenly and Serint jerked his head up at the very uncharacteristic entry. "Harvin," the president managed to say, recognizing one of his second in commands, "what is the meaning of this? Did you forget to make an appointment for this client?"

Harvin couldn't think of anything to say, and Snotzenexer relieved him from the discussion by stepping in front of him, placing him in a position to take command of the situation. "I am here on important business."

Serint wasn't impressed with this man. He seemed to be well dressed and his posture and facial expression seemed to hold some sort of air that was common among the more elite in a society, but his physical stature was not imposing. Serint prided himself on being mentally, financially, and physically fit. "This is a bank," he said flatly. "Is there any other type of business?" The president rose from behind his desk, noticing for the first time that the two guards that stood outside his door had entered also. Serint had made it clear that he didn't want guards, cameras, or any other security device placed in his office, and knew immediately that something was up.

Harvin threw his boss some interesting looks as he walked toward the quartet that had invaded his privacy. "What is so important that you have to come up here without an appointment?" Snotzenexer knew that tone of voice and that style of walk. The admiral figured that the bank president took him for a rich, stuck-up, brat who always got his way and refused to be shut out of the president's office simply because he hadn't made an appointment.

"I plan on buying the bank from you," Snotzenexer said in sincerity.

Serint had been planning on pushing this small man around, but this statement took him off guard completely.

"I'm sorry," Snotzenexer said with a smile on his face, "I meant to say that I wish to buy the presidency from you. How much?"

"It's not for sale," Serint replied, puffing himself up slightly in front of the admiral. The punch came quickly, and everyone in the room save Harvin reacted to it. Both of the guards raised their weapons to protect their admiral, but held their fire as Snotzenexer had reacted first. It was true that the admiral was not physically imposing, but he had been trained well in hand to hand combat and was lightening quick.

Snotzenexer had seen the right hook coming five minutes ago, had even prepared for it when setting up the plans for the take over. He stepped inside it now, throwing his left arm up to deflect the blow out and down so the big man's forearm collided harmlessly with Snotzenexer's shoulder. The admiral then lashed out with his right elbow, catching the larger man in the throat. The president staggered back and Snotzenexer kicked his feet out from under him, sending the big man to the floor.

Serint looked up from the floor at Snotzenexer whose easy demeanor had not changed, then at Harvin who was astonished, and finally at the two men with weapons trained on him. It was at this time that he realized that he didn't recognize either of them. "I will say again," Snotzenexer began with Serint still on the floor, "I am here to buy the presidency from you. I am not concerned with whether or not you feel that it is for sale. Your feelings do not come into play here. I am Admiral Snotzenexer of the Imperial Navy. I have thirty Star Destroyers at my disposal and one Super Star Destroyer. I have total control of your bank already. All I require now is the paper work to make it official."

"And if I refuse to produce them for you?" Serint asked, furious that his voice was scratchy from Snotzenexer's elbow.

"Then I write them up myself. I simply thought that you would like to play a part in the operation. Your presence is not necessary. You are disposable."

"You can't possibly have control of the bank," Serint said, back on his feet with his voice back to normal. He reached to his side for his personal communicator. "Security!" he called into the device. "Security this is an emergency. I need available personnel to the president's office now." Serint paused, realizing that his message wasn't getting through. He examined the instrument and saw that something was jamming the signal. He walked quickly over to his desk and reached for a button that would set of every alarm in the bank. Silence. "What have you done?"

Snotzenexer sighed at the man's continual denial of the situation. "In a system that is fully automated, he who controls the system controls the bank." In truth Snotzenexer's control over the bank was very shaky at best. He had control of a few cameras and had replaced only a fraction of the security personnel. Werlimp had control of the communications from the president's office, but only because Serint had insisted on having an office devoid of security measures. If anyone decided to check the network and notice that an extra computer was wired in, the whole game would be over. Snotzenexer knew this, and he also knew that the bank's system ran a full diagnostic every half-hour and it was now twenty-one past the hour.

The next nine minutes went smoothly. The two guards restrained Serint, and Snotzenexer sat behind the president's desk. He had total access to all of the bank's records through the manipulation of the database. He accessed an account he had set up in another system several weeks earlier, and wired a significant sum (more than enough to make the transfer of power believable) to Serint's personnel account. The computer printed out the forms necessary and Snotzenexer filled them out quickly. At the end of the five-page document, two signatures were required. Serint had been watching silently and ginned widely. "I will not sign it. There is no way you can forge my signature unless you have-"

"-have a laser faximilator," Snotzenexer finished for him, producing the small hand-held device from his pocket. Serint's smile disappeared as a short search of the cluttered desktop produced a document that Serint had signed earlier that afternoon. Snotzenexer placed the rectangular device over the penned name and watched as the laser traced the handwriting exactly. He then placed the device over the documents he was forging, and the faximilator reproduced the signature.

Snotzenexer searched the drawers of the desk to find a seal for the document. With a presidential seal on them, no one would question the origin of the papers. He placed the rolled document in the shoot in the wall, and it was whisked to the bank secretary for processing. Snotzenexer, finished with the job, turned to look at Serint. "You have a shuttle waiting to take you to retirement. My guards will escort you to the roof where they will take you to the planet of your choice."

"You won't get away with this. I won't let you. Everyone will know those documents are false when I tell them what happened." The man kept shouting as the two guards ushered the man to his own private turbo lift in the corner of his office that led to the roof and the waiting Imperial shuttle.

"He's right you know," Harvin said, a little confidence restored to him by the words of his boss. "There is no way you can get away with this. There are too many people who know how this system works to let this transfer slip by unnoticed."

"Oh, don't worry," Snotzenexer responded, "I have no intention of keeping this secret." Snotzenexer leaned back in his new chair and spread his hands out in the air in front of him as if laying out the headlines for the next day's newspaper. "'Stress finally gets to President Serint Frosch. After suffering from a stroke five days ago, the president of the Varion Imperial Bank on Iom yesterday sold his ownership of the head office to a foreign investor. President Frosch said that the stress had gotten too much for him and he decided to suddenly step down after careful consideration. Sadly, the former president's assessment of his situation turned tragically accurate as he had another stroke upon leaving the bank in a private shuttle. Serint Frosch was pronounced dead upon arrival at the-'"

"What are you talking about?" Harvin interrupted. "You can't possibly predict- You don't know if- Unless you are responsible for-" Harvin didn't want to finish his train of thought.

"You would be surprised what a little poison will do to the human heart." Snotzenexer looked intently at the man in front of him, trying to let him know the severity of the situation before him. "How many people really know what goes on up here?" Snotzenexer didn't need an answer. "Only three, right?" Snotzenexer leaned back in his chair again and resumed his news reporter's voice. "'In an unrelated incident, the Varion Imperial Bank was dealt another tragic blow as First Assistant to the former President Frosch was killed in a boating accident while vacationing in the Tristoff sector, leaving only First assistant-'"

"Me," Harvin said, realizing for the first time what position he was in.

"You are important to me. You already explained everything that you do, and I will need a little guidance as to how to manage both this bank and all of the other duties that I have. However, you are also the last evidence of what has happened here today, so you are also in a very precarious position. You better watch your step."

Harvin thought he was going to be sick. Two more of Snotzenexer's guards walked in and led Harvin to the private turbo lift, en route to his private quarters. As the men left Snotzenexer alone in his office, a small light blinked on his desk. "Yes," Snotzenexer spoke as he depressed a button next to the light.

"Uh, sir," a female voice came through a desk speaker, "is President Frosch there?"

"No, this is Alex Snotzenexer."

"Oh, I see," the woman said, obviously recognizing the name. Unless Snotzenexer was wrong (and he was never wrong) this was his new secretary. "I really need to talk to Pres- uh, former President Frosch."

"I'm afraid that he has left already. Perhaps if you come up here I might be able to answer a few of your questions."

"Uh, yes, sir. I would greatly appreciate that, sir."

This was the part that Snotzenexer had feared the most, yet it also promised to be the easiest. If he could get a few key people in his new staff to trust and like him, this would go very smoothly.

Chapter 5 "Incomming"

The huge Super Star Destroyer dropped out of hyperspace like a black bat emerging from its cave in the dead of night - totally invisible. Admiral Sanson looked out of the windows on the bridge of the cloaked monstrosity into the chaotic swirling gasses amidst the complex web of gravity wells. She was in the Danzig system again and was not happy to be there.

"Navigation," she barked in a voice that would never be questioned, "set a course for the Denorid system using the coordinates that are preprogrammed into the computer and reenter hyperspace when the course is calculated." Sanson turned away from view in front of her and walked back toward her normal vantagepoint at the back of the bridge. She tapped her wrist communicator and spoke again. "Commander Pearson, have you finished your work yet?"

Sanson waited for the pause, knowing that the commander was hard at work. "We are just about finished, sir. We've only got a few-"

"Will you be finished with the asteroids in two hours?"

"Yes, sir," Pearson responded, though Sanson could hear some doubt in his voice.

"You better hope so, Commander. You will stay in the shuttle bay until you have finished. The bay doors will open in exactly two hours. If your crew isn't finished at that time than you will simply join our rock collection in its flight through the vacuum of space. Am I understood?"

"Perfectly. Commander Pearson out."

Admiral Sanson smiled at the image of the commander relaying her threat to the rest of her crew. Her husband had given her strict orders at the beginning of this campaign that as few officers as possible should be killed. Admiral Snotzenexer had stated that manpower was a luxury that they couldn't afford to waste. However, Sanson had no intention of backing down on her threat of asphyxiating members of her crew. She knew that Pearson and his men knew this, and it would no doubt redouble their efforts to make sure that in two hours they were safely breathing inside the ship as apposed to gasping at the airless void of the Danzig system.

One hour and fifty five minutes later, Admiral Sanson was standing in the observation lounge looking down into the main shuttle bay of the huge Super Star Destroyer. The sight was an odd one. The bay was huge and ninety-nine percent of the time the space was merely wasted on small shuttlecraft and pointless honor receptions. The bay had been designed to be large enough to hold just about any size ship in existence. Reports were that about twelve years ago one ambitious, rogue Imperial Captain had gone so far as to disable one of his own Victory class Star Destroyers, bring them into the bay of his Super Star Destroyer, had the ship boarded, and every crew member killed as a show of discipline.

Right now the bay contained about eighty asteroids, each weighing no less than fifteen hundred tons and some as much as three thousand. The artificial gravity in the bay had been turned off and Admiral Sanson could still see two groups working on the last two asteroids. Each of the rocks had explosive devices on them with a solar sensor on the opposite side.

"You have three more minutes," Sanson said into a microphone that broadcasted her voice into the bay. She watched as both groups quickly checked their work and scrambled to get out of the room as fast as possible. She already began thinking of ways that she could punish Commander Pearson for his laziness. She was sure that in their haste a few of the rocks had their explosives connected poorly or some of the solar sensors weren't exactly opposite the explosives.

All of the groups made it out of the room with thirty seconds to spare. A short while later everyone watched the bay doors open. The starlines of hyperspace were visible for a brief second before the huge rocks began to shoot out of the doors as the suction power of space evacuated the entire bay. Sanson could also see several pieces of valuable equipment that hadn't been secured properly shoot out after the disappearing asteroids. Sanson walked over to Pearson, who was still out of breath from his last second escape. "We laid out a time table in advance that everyone agreed upon. It was well with in your power to have completed this job yesterday. We do not wish to fall behind schedule. Any further delays will not be treated with such leniency. Imagine how easy it would have been to open the doors a few minutes early."

Pearson's breath came no easier to him as the powerful admiral walked away.

Outside of the huge ship the engineless asteroids began falling out of hyperspace. The rocks were not able to keep up the tremendous rate of speed on their own, but when they reentered normal space, they did maintain an incredible velocity. Essentially they were a moving asteroid field on a direct course with the Denorid system.

***

The call rang in clearly through the noise of the shower. "Han!" Leia yelled, sticking her head out from behind translucent curtain. "Could you get that? It's probably Aakbar. Tell him I'll be done in a few minutes."

"Sure thing, dear," the old smuggler said and walked over to the wall to respond to the blinking and beeping screen. "Yes?"

"Uh, hello General Solo. Where is Lei- uh, President Organa-Solo?"

"She's in the shower," Han responded to this very un-Calamarian looking man. Han thought he recognized the uniform the man was wearing as one that belonged to the military but wasn't sure. Han had been retired for some time now, a fact that this man didn't seem to know. "May I ask who's calling?"

"This is Lieutenant Commander Ransig. Do you know when I can speak to her? This is very important."

Han sighed. It seemed that everything that Leia did was "very important." Han had decided to retire from the military and stay home as much as possible to ease the load from Leia's seemingly tireless shoulders, but she was still bombarded with countless requests for her presence at every manner of meetings and social gatherings. "She will be done taking her shower when she feels that she is sufficiently relaxed. I will have her call you wh-" Han stopped is speech when he saw Ransig's eyes focus on something behind him. Han turned around to see his wife wrapped modestly in a bathrobe, furiously toweling her hair.

"Oh," Leia said to the screen, "it's you Ransig." Han noticed that the young lieutenant commander seemed ill at ease at the sight of the head of the Republic in a bathrobe, but Leia's nonchalant attitude took a lot of the nervousness from the science officer. "What is it?"

"A few moments ago our sensors picked up a group of asteroids leaving the Danzig system."

"I thought you said that the Danzig system had regained its stability?"

"I was sure that it had. I really don't know where these have come from. When I have time, I plan on back tracking them as far as possible. They simply emerged from the sensor shadows created by one of the larger suns in the Danzig system. I'm not sure yet where they came from, but it is possible that our sensors were blocked for quite a while."

Han watched Leia absorb this information and saw that there wasn't an enormous amount of concern on her face and thought that this officer had simply over-reacted when he found out that some secret asteroid belt had been found. All of those brainiacs in the science department were the same.

"Thank-you, Ransig. Look into it further and make sure that this was a freak accident and that there aren't more instabilities in the system."

"I will when I have time but right now we have a much bigger problem. The field of asteroids is on a collision course with the Denorid system."

Han now watched as Leia's face went pale, her knees went weak, and she sagged visibly in her stance. "But you said- But I promised them-" Han rushed over and helped support her. She recovered quickly. "I want you to examine the situation for another half hour and prepare a report for the same group that met earlier."

***

Forty-five minutes later Senator Belsiphvin, Senator Trent, Admiral Antilles, Luitenent Commander Ransig, and Leia were seated around the same table they had sat at a few days earlier. Ransig was standing in front of a large screen mounted inside the wall and started to show what he had found.

"Only an hour ago a relatively small asteroid field was detected emerging from a large sensor shadow inside the Dansig system. There appears to be a little less than one hundred asteroids in this group. The smallest of these is about the size of a freighter while the largest is about the size of small war ship. They are headed for the Denorid system. I am not sure exactly why we weren't able to detect this field much earlier. Looking into the Danzig system is much like looking into a forest. There are a lot of trees blocking your vision, but you can still look between them. But like a forest, you can only see so far into it before every line of sight is blocked by at least one tree.

"I do have some good news. It appears that all three of the life bearing planets in the system are safe from any type of collision. The chances they would be hit by anything at all, as I said before, were slim to begin with." Ransig turned to the screen, which showed a view of Denorid system. "The orbits of the three planets are relatively parallel, so it is pretty easy to show them here on a two dimensional display." Ransig hit a button and off to the bottom of the screen a small clump of dots appeared moving slowly toward the sun in the Denorid system. "The three planets, Forinad, Denor, and Trewist are shown here with the positions they will be in when the rocks reach the system." Forinad was the nearest planet to the sun and it was a little up from directly left of the star. The other two planets were almost directly above the sun on the display.

"The asteroids will approach the sun on the right side like this." The people in the room watched as the asteroid's flight path started to curve slightly as it neared the sun. As the rocks flew closer, a few of them began to curl dramatically toward the sun. "As you can see, the sun will pull almost all of them in." As he spoke, dot after do began to disappear into the bright spot on the screen. Everyone noticed, however, that not all of the dots were pulled in by the large sun. "A few asteroids, maybe ten, will escape the gravity of the sun, but they won't hit any of the planets." The video sped up and some of the rocks hugged the sun closely, slinging around it and changing their course ninety degrees. These rocks then flew toward Forinad, but passed underneath it. The other rocks that were a little further away from the sun altered their courses by forty-five degrees, passing between Forinad and the two northerly planets, Denor and Trewist.

"How long will this take?" Wedge asked.

"At their current speed, the asteroids will reach the Denorid sun in about five days. After the rocks pass by the sun, they will pass Forinad six hours later. The other rocks will leave the system about twelve hours later."

"How long does it take to reach the Denorid system by hyperspace?" Wedge asked another question. Leia began to understand Wedge's line of questioning.

"It takes about four and a half days."

"If a ship were to leave in about six hours from Coruscant," Leia piped in, "when would they reach the Denorid system relative to the asteroid's flight time?"

Ransig fiddled with the data pad he was holding for a few seconds before replying. "Somewhere in between twelve and fifteen hours before the asteroids reached the sun."

Now everyone in the room knew what Wedge and Leia were thinking. "I would strongly recommend that we bring this in front of the senate, or at least the ruling council," Senator Belsiphvin said.

Leia thought for a while. They had not mentioned anything about the Denorid system to the assembly yet because of the ludicrousness of the original request. It was a big galaxy and the Senate could not be bothered with every little request from every backward world that came along. Leia did agree that sending ships into the Denorid system was a military act, and that needed the Senate's approval, but not only was there no time for the long drawn out procedure that that entailed, but they were only going to war against a group of about eighty asteroids. Leia shook her head. "There isn't enough time for that. You know how long those types of proceedings take, and you just heard what kind of time constraints we are dealing with here."

"Then I suggest that we do nothing," Belsiphvin compromised.

"Will the rocks ever be visible to the people?" Wedge asked.

"The sun should block them before they reach the system," Ransig said, "but I imagine that the surviving rocks would be visible about an hour or two after they past the sun."

"So the people will see these things flying across their night sky?" Leia asked, not liking the prospect.

"Oh, no," Ransig said quickly. "These are way too small to be visible with the naked eye. Even the asteroids that pass by Forinad will require some type of telescope to be seen. You must also remember that these asteroids will approach the planets from the sun. They won't be visible at night until they pass the planet."

Leia's face brightened. "You mean that there is a chance that they won't even know that the rocks are there?"

"No," Senator Trent said suddenly from the corner. Leia knew the old senator's reputation as a silent one, but she also knew that when he decided to speak he usually had something very important to say. "They will see these asteroids. They will see them within five minutes after they become visible. I know what these people are like. Their eyes are always to the sky. Especially now, so soon after the Dark Ring's explosion, they are trying to find some type of order in the chaos. They will see the asteroids and they will be scared."

"What do you suggest that we do?" Leis asked, not knowing if she was going to like the answer.

"I agree with Senator Belsiphvin. We should bring this issue in front of the whole assembly, not to send ships to blow up the asteroids, but to send a diplomatic team down to their planets to try and arrange an agreeable solution to this tension between us. You can't just expect to remove the asteroids from the sky and solve the problem. The problem is much bigger than that. They don't want a quick fix, they want a long term solution."

"No," Leia responded, "that's just it. They do want a quick fix. That's exactly what they asked me to do. They want me to fix their sky. Poof! Just like that."

"They don't know what they want," Trent said. "They are too confused to reason out what they are asking. They aren't thinking rationally, like you."

"What?!"

"You're correct that they asked for their sky to be fixed, but they didn't ask you. They asked the Republic. I think that you are over stepping your bounds as the Head of the Republic. You have to remember that you only represent the Republic."

Leia didn't enjoy this at all. "I know what I'm doing!" she said a little too loudly. "I'm not suggesting that I go to the Denorid system by myself and play smashball with the asteroids using my lightsaber. I am proposing that we send a Republic group to do exactly what they asked us to do: protect them from the Danzig system."

"You can't cover this up forever, Leia" Belsiphvin said.

Leia recognized the senator's tone of voice and didn't miss the fact that she had addressed her using her first name. They were both skilled diplomats, and Leia knew the tactics used in dealing with hostile representatives. She also knew that she was getting pretty steamed up. "Cover what up?" she responded, a little more calmly. "This isn't a conspiracy. I am trying to do what needs to be done."

"Are you going to tell them?" Trent asked.

"Tell who?" Leia asked, but then realized whom the seasoned senator was talking about. "Tell the Denorians? I hadn't thought about it. Probably. Why?"

"If you are going to tell them," Belsiphvin put in, picking up for Trent, "then why are you going to blow up the asteroids? We already know that there is no danger to the people what-so-ever. Wouldn't it be safer to just let them fly through the system and let the Denorians see for themselves how harmless they are? Maybe then they will start to realize how random the universe is and start to come to grasp with what is happening in their sky. How do you think they will respond to you when you tell them that you have just blown up a hundred asteroids that were hurtling toward their homes? They are a paranoid people. They won't see any reason in you blowing them up except if they were a threat."

"They don't trust you now," Trent said. "If you do this and then tell them that the asteroids were simply harmless, they won't believe you for a second."

Leia heard the advice, and she wanted to go along with it, but she had her instincts, and they were telling her to destroy these rocks however possible. If that meant she had to do so against the will of the senate and keep it secret from the people of the Denorid system, then so be it. She had learned a long time ago from her brother not to ignore her instincts. "I understand what you are saying, but we don't have a lot of time to decide what to do. I agree that we need to develop a better relationship with these people in order to bring them through this hard time, but that will take time. What happens if we ignore these rocks and they don't fly as predicted." Leia walked over to the screen that Ransig had used. The display was frozen with the asteroids passing just underneath Forinad. On the screen it looked to be only a few inches, but she knew it to be several hundred klicks. "Would you allow one of your children to have a paranguat shot from their head by a skilled marksman? Of course not. You know down deep inside that the gunner won't miss the fruit, but what if he does? What if you're child flinches and jumps? What if the shooter sneezes? The universe is not predictable. A few days ago Ransig swore that the Danzig system was back to normal. Well it isn't. What if a comet streaks in front of the asteroids? What if a solar flare redirects the rocks as they pass the sun?

"My father taught me a long time ago not to play with fire. We don't want to get burned here. These aren't pebbles," she said pointing at the dots on the screen. "They are huge chunks of space rock that will decimate a planet if they hit it. I think we have a responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen." Plus I have this feeling that these asteroids aren't what they seem, Leia added to herself.

Leia could see from the senators' faces that she hadn't convinced them, but that they would go along with her on this one. "I understand your concern," Trent said, "and I agree that we should do something about these asteroids, but I am not willing to let this be a quick fix. It will take four days for any ships that you send to reach the rocks. By that time I would really like for you to find some way of presenting this to the assembly."

Senator Belsiphvin nodded her head at this, and Leia gave in. The five people began to disperse quietly, knowing that they would have to fight some more about this later. Leia approached Wedge as he had lingered in the room. "Do you think I'm doing the right thing?"

Wedge nodded. "I think you are making the right decision, but not in the right way. You are too used to the days in the Rebellion where important decisions - life or death decisions - had to be made on the spot. We had to prepare for attacks in a matter of hours and had to interpret information in a matter of minutes. You were good at that kind of decision making. Now you have to realize that while you might be able to see the correct path to follow right away, you won't always be agreed with, and you have to let the decisions flow through the correct channels. It's at times like these, where we only have a few hours to make a decision that your old instincts come back. You just have to have faith that when everyone else around you has had enough time to analyze the situation, they will come up with the same decision that you arrived at right away. Don't worry," he smiled, "they might be slow, but they'll come around eventually."

"Thanks, Wedge."

"Anytime. Oh, and don't worry about those asteroids either. I have a few ships here at Coruscant that are dying for a little excitement. I'll take care of it."

***

"Not on your life!"

"Come on, Mara. It's not that outrages. It's a long trip, you might get lonely."

The trader stopped walking for a moment, looked up from her clipboard, and turned to look Luke straight in the face. "If I was worried about getting lonely, I'd sooner ask Chewie to come along, he's at least used to taking orders as a copilot, and I wouldn't have to put up with constant talking."

Luke dodged out of the way as a dock-worker nearly ran him over with a anti-grav sled loaded down with electronic equipment. Mara intercepted the wayward sled. "No, you idiot! I want that loaded into the right side of the ship. It's lighter, and I want to balance the load." Mara shook her head with disgust at the incompetent driver and did a quick check of the inventory on the sled. She looked back down at her clipboard, crossing off a few items.

"There were only a dozen splicing half-wave rectifiers on that sled," Luke said. Mara turned around sharply, finding the Jedi Master hovering over her. She looked back at the sled, saw her mistake, and erased the check she had put next to the inventory listing of twenty-four of the rectifiers. "See, you need me."

Mara didn't say anything, but moved to the back of the ship where they were loading some of the provisions she needed for herself on the long flight. "Take a look, Jedi," She said, knowing without looking that Luke had followed her. "How much food do you see? Not enough for two people is there?"

"I don't eat much," Luke said. "I can put myself in this trance an-"

"What do you need to go to the Varion system for, anyway?"

"You said you saw Imperial activity in the system, and I have inf-"

"I didn't say that."

"But Han and Wedge sai-"

"They're lying. I haven't been to the Varion system for over a year."

"Your ex-copilot! It was your ex-copilot who sa-"

"You really need to get your stories right, Skywalker." All the while she spoke, Mara was walking back and forth under her ship, checking off this and that, making sure everything was in good order, and basically trying to make the Coruscant docking crew hate her as much as possible. "Why can't you just take a shuttle or something." Mara paused, rubbing at a little scuff-mark she found on the underside of her ship. "I'm sure if you asked nice they'd lend you an entire Calamarian Cruiser, you being a Jedi Master and all."

"What's wrong?" Mara finally turned to look at Luke in response to the odd question. "I mean," Luke started to clarify, amazed that Mara was actually letting him finish a sentence, "why do you hate me so mu-"

"I don't hate you, Skywalker. I just dislike you a great deal. There is a difference, trust me. Now Han, I hate him."

Luke didn't quite know if Mara was kidding or not, he had never really figured her out. He didn't get the chance to ask her either because she was already walking away from him, hurrying to scream at another group of workers who were trying to squeeze a box in the ship with the "this side up" arrow pointing clearly to the side. Luke hurried after her.

"Why my ship?" she asked, when she knew that he was back behind her.

"It's inconspicuous. Everything we have here has 'Republic' emblazoned across it, if not in name then in meaning. I can't very well fly a X-wing into an Imperial infested system and not draw attention to myself."

"I'm going to Iom," Mara said, watching as the last few pieces of computer networking pieces were being loaded. "I am delivering computer networking, digital video recorders, and radio broadcasting equipment to some big organization. I plan on arriving at night, meeting with the head of the organization the next morning, and spending the rest of the day unloading and helping to install the equipment. I then plan on staying on Iom an extra four days while I have the Jade's Fire's hyperdrive over-hauled and its defense systems refitted at an excellent space dock that I've heard of. At no point do I plan on leaving the planet, and I have no intention of going anywhere near the asteroid belt where these supposed Imperials were seen. What would you - if I let you tag along - do?"

Luke was kind of amazed that she had told him so much; but then, who was Luke going to tell? "I, uh, don't kn-"

"That's what I thought." She snapped the cover closed over her clipboard, stored it under her arm, and began walking toward the hangar.

"I don't know," Luke yelled at her, "but I'd think of something." Mara paused in her retreat to turn and regard him. She couldn't help but feel slightly sorry for the pathetic begging form of the Jedi Master. "I always do."

"If you can fit you personal belongings into the passenger cabin, and store any extra rations you want in the pantry, you can come." Before Luke could run over and kiss her (and it looked like he just might), Mara held up her hand. "First I want three things perfectly clear. I am the captain aboard my ship. What I say goes. Second is that I plan on staying there for five days and no longer. I have a schedule to keep. If you do anything to jeopardize my reputation or to ruin this run, I will heed the Emperor's not so forgotten command and kill you. Lastly, if you so much as pretend to start talking about the Force, I will put you in an escape capsule and shoot you back in the general direction of Coruscant. Is that clear? And get rid of that stupid cane!"

Chapter 6 "Making Allies"

The modified carrier carrying the three members of the 185th fighter squadron was entering the orbit of a small little known world called Gaouick.

"So you're saying that the Empire is held up here?" Jon asked, quite disappointed.

"Not quite," Vince said, checking his flight computer for some information on the planet. He couldn't find a thing. "I don't even think the Empire knows of this planet."

"So we've decided to call it a planet?" Bep asked. He was looking at all of the sensor readouts he could find. "That place down there is more a kin to a sewer than any planet I've ever seen. From what I can tell, its climate is a constant muggy eighty degrees with overcast skies and drizzle. And it looks like that has been and will be the forecast forever."

"People actually live down there?" Jon asked, peering out the window, attempting to have his gaze penetrate the perpetual haze that covered the planet.

"People, and I'm hoping computers," Vince said, though he knew that such a climate did not treat electronic components well. His hope was becoming more like a desperation as he had been sitting in orbit for over ten minutes now and no one had tried to contact him.

"Maybe they just don't have any flight control," Bep offered, knowing what Vince was waiting for.

"Or maybe they're just hoping that we'll take a hint and leave."

Neither was the case. "Unidentified ship please identify yourself and make your intentions known."

"Gaouick, this is Hawk in Labor requesting permission to land. We are looking for some information. We are from the Republic." The group didn't really know if it was a good thing to say this far from Republic space, but they had decided earlier that they didn't want to try and pull off this operation under cover.

It had been a good thing to say. "The Republic?!" the flight controller asked with obvious enthusiasm. "We've wanted to get in contact with you for some time. We feel that we would be good addition to your government. Don't let our looks fool you. We have a lot to offer. For example our wine is excellent, and we have some of the most extraordinary medicines here that you-"

"That might be so, sir," Vince said cutting him off. "Maybe we could better appreciate your planet's riches if you would allow us to land."

"Oh, of course," the excited voice said with controlled glee. "If you follow these coordinates you will find a landing platform waiting for you."

Vince fed the coordinates he received through the transfer into the auto pilot, not trusting himself in the unknown climate and poor visibility. The ship entered the atmosphere, smoothly cutting through the thick air. The trio kept waiting to break through the thick cloud cover, but the dull gray seemed to last forever. Finally they saw the blinking lights of civilization. At first the group thought that they were looking at the tops of buildings that extended up into the sky, but a look at the altitude gauge told them that this was the landing pad - at ground level.

"No planet has this kind of cloud cover," Vince tried to disagree with the reality around them. As the ship settled down onto the platform, they began to pick out shapes through the mist. The nearby hangar was visible through the haze because of its lights and there appeared to be some kind of radio communications tower next to it.

The ship finally stopped its descent with a sharp hiss of hydraulics as the ship's repulsers eased the weight of the large ship onto its five pilons. "There has to be a party waiting for us, if the radio controller was any kind representation of these people's attitude," Vince reasoned.

"That means that we can't stay here in our nice conditioned air," Jon followed the reasoning.

"I guess we should get this over with," Bep finally said.

"Maybe we should leave through the airlock," Jon said, "so we don't contaminate the ship."

"Try and remember that this is these people's home, okay."

The trio walked to the exit and braced themselves as Vince pressed the button to open the gangway. All three of them almost gagged at the putrescence that flowed up at them. The air was so thick that you had to chew just to breathe. "It smells like something died," Jon muttered under his breath.

"Only one thing?" Bep responded.

Vince tried to keep his posture sturdy, as his knees wanted to buckle under the weight of the atmosphere. He walked out ahead of his complaining friends towards the ground of the platform. As he stepped off the ship's rubber gripped walkway onto the mold-slicked platform, he nearly fell flat on his back. His arm shot out for the gangway's lift piston and steadied himself has he tested his boots' traction on the slimy surface. He found he could manage, but the premacrete was unforgiving at best.

"Welcome!" A voice shouted at them from the edge of the platform, and Vince almost lost his balance again as the voice startled him. "Watch your step. I'm afraid that we don't keep the landing pads as clean as we should. We don't get that many visitors, you see."

Vince could understand as he walked toward the voices of the people who were still invisible to his eyes that were still trying to adjust to the soup he was trying to see through. He dared not lift his feet and sort of shuffled to edge of the platform, finally being able to make out the forms of two people waiting for him. Vince and his three friends were abnormally tall, and were used to towering over people they met, but the way Vince looked down at the people in front of him was almost comical.

After Vince carefully navigated the few steps that led him down to the level that his hosts were at, he could better see them. They were both male and appeared to be no taller than five feet, with squat builds and very wrinkled skin. Their complexions were milky white and their hair was dark. They basically looked like a people who didn't see much sun.

"A picture of strength and youth," one of the men said, looking admirably at Vince. Vince thought the comment odd, as if it were something someone looking at an art piece would say. Vince managed to nod in response, not really knowing what to make of the compliment. "We have waited to meet with representatives of the Republic for a long while now."

Vince swallowed hard as he heard his friends shuffling in from behind. He didn't really know how he was going to break it to these people that he was only here to see if they had any record of a fleet passing by in hyperspace. He knew for certain that if the Republic ever planned to send a delegation to a new member, he and his two odd friends would be the last choices. "I'm glad to meet you as well." Vince had no idea what to say.

"Where are my manners," one of the men scolded himself. "My name is Theeble and this is Chorbin."

"My name is Vince, and these are my two companions, Bep and Jon." The two groups paused, wondering what the acceptable means of greeting was, until finally six handshakes were distributed among the five people.

"Let us go inside," Theeble said. "You will be surprised to find how well we have done for ourselves in this climate."

At least they know that it isn't a good climate, Vince thought. Most races that lived in these types of environments came to believe that they are in a paradise and all other climates are despicable. Jon trailed the procession, not at all happy with his friends' choice of landing sites. The young pilot thrived on action and adventure, and this mission had so far been just an exercise in academics. It wasn't that he couldn't follow his two friends' reasoning or understand their lofty conversation topics concerning the inner workings of the ships they designed, he would just much rather be using them than talking about them.

There was a long stretch between the landing pad and the next building they approached. At least it seemed like a long walk to the sightless boys. Vince wondered if their hosts were as helpless in this fog as they were.

"How long have you been here?" Bep asked as they walked. Vince thought the question odd. It was kind of like asking someone on Coruscant how long there had been people there. History has its limits as to how far back it went.

Bep had already reasoned that these people had been placed here, confident that nothing sentient could have evolved on such a planet. "Our people were exiled here by the Empire about two hundred years ago," Chorbin answered solemnly. "It was very difficult for our forefathers to get started on this mud hole, but they managed. They were mostly Imperial criminals, at least criminals in the twisted eyes of the Empire. We wouldn't have survived at all if it weren't for the plentiful phorsm gas on this planet. The gas is very flammable and with it we were able to have fire. There isn't enough metal ore here to produce ships, but we were able to make a few electrical appliances and we have done quite well."

As the group neared their destination, Vince saw that the building was made entirely of mud blocks. He was becoming concerned that what they might consider as "doing very well" would fall well bellow their normal standards. The group walked through the doorway, which consisted of a specially treated wooden door and into a dimly lit anti-room. The room was very small and the three tall fighter pilots found that the ceiling wasn't designed with their height in mind.

"This will only take a second," Theeble said as soon as they were all inside and the door closed behind them. With out warning a cool white fog filled the room from six different jets. None of the visitors could identify the odd smelling vapor, but as soon as it dissipated, they noticed that the smell and mugginess that had until recently surrounded them, was gone. "This way," their guide needlessly instructed as he opened the door out of the cramped room.

All three boys just stood and stared. Jon even turned around to see if they had walked through a dimensional portal. The sparkling whiteness of the room hit them first. Then it was the size of the room. Then it was the technology. "Yes, we've done pretty well for ourselves."

The main room was fifty feet tall and there were six balconies that ringed the open chamber. Vince marveled at the beautiful chandelier that hung in the middle of the cylindrical room. There was a very impressive concentric pattern on the floor, focusing into the middle of the room where a small fountain played carelessly with a few dozen gallons. There were plenty of people milling about the complex, most of them in the balconies, walking in and out of the many hidden rooms that the building contained.

"It's very . . ." Vince struggled with the right word, "clean," he finally finished.

Theeble and Chorbin chuckled at the comment, knowing what their three guests had expected.

"How did you do it?" Bep asked, still quite amazed.

"If you'd like, I could give you a tour and a brief history," Chorbin offered.

Bep looked at Vince and the unvoted leader shrugged. "You go ahead, Jon and I will see what we can find." Bep needed no further encouragement, and he and Chorbin walked off together, exchanging questions and answers.

Theeble looked at his two remaining guests. "So what brings the Republic to Gaouick?"

"We aren't actually representatives from the government," Vince admitted.

"But you told our flight controller that you were?" Theeble said, disappointment showing through his voice.

"We told him that we were from the Republic, and we are, but we aren't diplomats, and we don't represent our government. We are conducting an investigation for our military." Vince watched the short man's face fall visibly. "However, we do have the ability and authority to bring a request to our government regarding your eagerness to join the Republic. Believe me, from what I've seen, you shouldn't have a hard time being accepted."

At this, Theeble's face regained much of its lost luster. "Well, what can we do to help you?"

"We want to know if you keep records of your long range scanners," Jon said, deciding to join the conversation.

"We do as a matter of fact. There isn't much to do out here, so our people take great pride in trying to see as much as possible of what goes on around us. If you follow me I'll show you are radar control room."

After an hour of searching, Vince turned up exactly what he was looking for. Several weeks ago a very large group of ships passed through the edge of the system. Vince borrowed a data pad and recorded their trajectory. He couldn't wait until he got back to his ship to check it out though and calculated their destination using the computers before him.

"They went to the Varion system," Vince said at last.

"What's there?" Jon asked.

A heck of a lot more than here, Vince thought to himself. "There are two, no, three inhabited planets and a very large population," Vince turned from the screen to look at Jon, "perfect for hiding in."

***

Snotzenexer looked across the table at the people sitting there. The meeting reminded him of the meeting he had had in Thrawn and Tallon's campaign just a month or two earlier. The people at this meeting were a bit more distinguished though. Each planet in the Varion had its own government, and each of those governments was represented here by at least two people. Iom's governor and vice governor were both present, as well as the head of the planet's special forces which acted as a the means of law enforcement on the small, yet over populated planet. The other two planets had high-ranking senators from their more prominent provinces, but no substantial leaders.

Snotzenexer had been hoping that each of the planets would heed his invitation with at least one member of the executive branch, but only Iom had so graced his request. Snotzenexer half expected that Iom's enthusiastic response was due to suspicion that the admiral's new position had been gained illegally. There was absolutely no evidence to make such a claim, Snotzenexer had been sure about that, but that didn't keep General Crog, the head of Iom's special forces, from giving the diminutive admiral forceful glares.

Snotzenexer also noticed something else about the gathering. They were all trying to hide their eagerness to hear what he was going to say. The day before Snotzenexer had pulled what people were still calling a financial miracle. The first executive act that the admiral had taken was to sell all of the bank's stock in a huge entertainment industry located in a distant sector. The entertainment industry had been one of the bank's biggest money makers for five years in a row and everyone scoffed at the new bank manager, calling him a buffoon. The news reports ridiculed him, saying that Serint's corpse could operate a bank better than he. Snotzenexer's defense had been that there was some civil unrest growing on the industry's home planet, and he felt that if a civil war broke out, that the controversial entertainment facility would be an inviting target. People understood what he was talking about. The government was regulating everything that the industry put out, most of which was heavy propaganda. There was unrest as well, and all of the social analysts predicted an uprising, but they also said that it would be crushed quickly.

Because the Varion bank had been one of the major holders in the mammoth business, the stock took a sharp dive after Snotzenexer had sold. Instead of suffering, the entertainment industry boomed when investors scrambled to buy the sold stock at a bargain price. In the confusion that ensued, more stock was bought back than had originally been sold. The heads of the entertainment world were laughing long and hard at the Varion Bank President, only to have their head office building blown to bits by a terrorist attack the next day.

Before the reporters were able to question Snotzenexer as to how he had known what was coming, he had already invested the money received from his sell into a very small and suffering propulsion company in the Varion system. The company was being shoved out of business by a much larger and more powerful star ship construction yard, the Varion Construction Yard. Before the news reports could compliment Snotzenexer on his apparent brilliance concerning the entertainment industry, they found it necessary to deride him again for this ridiculous move. The people who had held stock in the fading company, now took advantage of the admiral's apparent mistake by selling their suddenly valuable stock as fast as possible, putting the company right back where it had started and reducing the bank's stock in value by twenty-five percent.

Instead of the company folding, though, the Varion Construction Yard, in a very surprising move, decided to purchase all of its mining fields and manufacturing plants, adding the small industry into their monopoly. This not only saved the jobs of the several thousand people employed in the smaller company, but it also turned the bank's practically worthless stock, into incredibly valuable holdings. With the addition of this new stock to the stock that the bank had already held in the construction company, the Imperial Varion Bank suddenly found themselves as part owners in the Varion Construction Yard. Amidst the mockery, Snotzenexer had managed to double the bank's earnings over the past two years in the time of two days.

The news reports now had nothing but good things to say about the bank president, but still wanted more information as to how he had predicted the turn of events so accurately. Snotzenexer simply said that he had been following a hunch. His hunch had earned all of his bank employees a substantial raise, and earned him the respect he had needed to make the transition of power necessary. He had, of course, had the entertainment industry blown up by some of his special operatives and had also privately met with the head of the Varion Construction Yard promising him that with the bank as part owner, he would more easily be able to invest large amounts of money into the business. But no one would ever find this out.

Despite what the newsreels said about him, most of the people at the table still didn't trust him. Most of that distrust simply came from the fact that each of them had worked very hard to attain their position, and this man seemed to have become a god over night. Snotzenexer was looked upon favorably by two of the members at the table. Senators Gwen and Jaralin were from the planet Knilerhn where the propulsion company that Snotzenexer had saved was located. Not only were many jobs saved, but also there was now expansion planned.

"I think I speak for the group," Senator Gwen said, her eyes darting around the table at the other members, "when I say that we are all eager to hear what you have to say."

Snotzenexer paused, taking a short second to smile at the elderly woman. "I know you all had a rocky relationship with President Serint, and I am hoping that I might find a more favorable position with you now that he is gone."

"Perhaps if you bribed us with some of your new found riches," General Crog said, getting a chuckle from the four senators present. Snotzenexer though, understood it as much more than a lighthearted comment. The unsaid conclusion to the statement, "isn't that how you make all your friends," hung in the admiral's ears, and he understood that the three people from Iom would be a tough crowd.

"How much would you like?" Snotzenexer asked pleasantly, making no indication that he understood the General's threat. The comment brought even more laughs from the senators, and Snotzenexer could tell that he was fast winning their approval. "Perhaps you could simply raise taxes and squeeze it out of me that way." Only the three members from Iom appreciated that comment, knowing how they had held the commercially successful Iom in a fierce, financial strangle hold for the past century.

"Though I wish to improve relations between the bank and the governments in which it resides, I fear that the issue that drove them apart for the past twenty years is going to be one of my pet peeves as well."

The faces of the four senators fell uniformly (the three members from Iom had never had anything but scowls on their faces). Neither of the senators from Knilerhn wanted to speak against Snotzenexer so Senator Loft of the second inhabited planet from the sun, Vario, broke the silence. "We all remember well President Serint's obsession with wanting to join the Republic. He felt that we were too vulnerable out here near the core systems, but we have never had any problems with the Empire, and since the incident in the Danzig system, I really don't see any reason to be concerned."

Snotzenexer didn't say anything for a while, hoping that someone else would figure out his motives. He thought he had made them pretty clear by all of his actions thus far, and he hoped he was dealing with people competent enough to figure it out. Governor Taimmen from Iom answered the admiral's wish. "From what I've seen so far, President, you are a man who was born to make money. I might add that you also seem to be very good at it." The words "too good" some how managed to remain out of the governor's speech. "What vast financial benefit do you see by joining this Republic."

Snotzenexer really enjoyed the way the governor had spoken the last two words. He said them almost as if he had been cursing. Snotzenexer would have to practice that. He also realized that when the time came, Governor Taimmen and his minions would probably be the easiest ones to convince of his plans. "I agree that the way the Republic runs right now, joining wouldn't help you; in fact it would probably hurt you. The Varion system is rich, not as rich as some, but rich. All the members in the Republic are treated equally. But you know, as well as I do, that just because you treat people equally, that doesn't make them equal, does it? If you joined now, you would be treated the same as any other two credit planet out there, getting none of the special privileges you deserve."

Senator Jaralin, the other senator from Knilerhn, who had been one of the biggest opponents to the old president's proposal and now one of Snotzenexer's biggest fans, liked what he was hearing. "That is exactly correct. Everyone knows that the Republic requires no tax from its members, but to compensate, they insist on some type of contribution to their on going war effort. We have one of the largest construction yards in the galaxy, even larger recently." Snotzenexer couldn't help but smile at the shameless plug. "We would obviously be quite a catch to the Republic, but what would we get in return? Nothing. They would take our ships as a sort of taxation and treat us in return no differently from the planets that provided them with worthless wheat or pointless pilots." Jaralin looked rather impressed at his unplanned alliteration. Snotzenexer too smiled realizing that while this man was good at reading politics, he was a mental midget and would also fall into place when the time came.

"If all this is true," the fourth senator, Oprank from Vario, spoke, "and you agree to it, why do you still wish a merger?"

"I sense the winds of change."

"Another one of your hunches?" Crog asked skeptically.

"Yes, but as with all of my hunches, they are based on rock solid facts. There is a time coming, not so far away, when the Republic will be turned upside-down and the rules for the strong will no longer be made by the weak. The government on Coruscant will slowly be changed into what it once was in the early days of the Empire before the clone wars."

"Please enlighten us," Vice Governor Paragn spoke for the first time. "Some of us weren't around during the time period of which you speak."

Snotzenexer managed to produce a smile for the sarcastic leaders of Iom, though his store of such grins was running low. "It was simple. The strong systems made the rules and the weaker systems followed them. That picture seems very harsh to you because you only know of the recent implementation of that policy by the late Emperor. He was not a good leader. He ruled by fear instead of by power and wisdom. What I am talking about is almost identical to what you have right now in this system. The powerful businesses have a definite control over the weak ones, and once that power is established it is almost impossible to remove it.

"In the near future, the galaxy will look to the strong for support. They will find it too. The Corellia system will be there as well as the Calamari and the Vaxorians. Heck, even the Hapans might try to make a move. With Iom being the economic hub that it is, and the Varion system controlling most of the commerce in a six system sector, you have a chance to be there as well."

"Are you trying to say that we should pursue this so we can become the rulers of the galaxy?" Senator Loft asked in all sincerity.

"I'm not saying anything like that. The new system of government that emerges from this mess will last a very long time. It will be much more far-reaching and powerful than anything that has preceded it. It will be a time of peace and prosperity. You have to make a decision of whether or not you want to be part of the ruling government or part of the serving public. You can easily sit back and enjoy the ride, or you can take the reigns and enjoy it all the more. Understand that you won't be alone at the top, and you might be as far down as fourth our fifth, but you will be there. The only problem is that you have to be part of the band wagon before you can try for the drivers seat."

Everyone was silent after this. They understood what he was saying and it all made perfect sense. There was only one problem, a problem that Snotzenexer knew was there from the beginning and a problem that he knew would be uncovered. He even knew who would uncover it.

"It all sounds well and good," Governor Taimmen agreed, "but you must remember that we are taking this all on a hunch of yours. Maybe if we had some proof that this changing of the guard in the Republic was actually going to happen we would be able to go along with your plan."

Snotzenexer's smile was genuine this time. He held the trump card of course. He actually held several of them, but that is what comes from stacking the deck. "Are you aware of President Organa-Solo's position with the general assembly?"

His question drew blank stares from most of the group, but Jaralin, the political expert, came to the admiral's rescue. "She has been meeting more and more opposition every year. Frankly she is to bull-headed and rash to rule over such a large group. She was much better equipped to be a rebellion leader than one during peace time."

"You are correct. Though she still has the support of the majority of the senate, she has been falling out of favor quite steadily. Even though this is the case, it will take a dramatic event to push her over the hump. All I wish to say is keep an eye on the Denorid system. President Organa-Solo is involved in a cover up right now that will infuriate quite a few people."

"What kind of cover up?" Senator Gwen asked.

Snotzenexer had known that he would have to reveal more information, he had just wanted for them to ask for it. "Remember that none of this leaves the room. The president recently had strong words with a representative from the Denorid system. If you are unaware of that system's location, it is right outside the Danzig system. They had asked for assistance in dealing with the chaos that had been left in the wake of the battle that the Republic had with the Empire in the Danzig system. President Organa-Solo flatly refused them, saying that it wasn't their fault and promising the people that nothing was going to happen to them. Now there are asteroids flying toward the system as a result of the chaos in the Danzig system. The president of the Republic has responded by sending a small fleet to intercept the asteroids even though on their current trajectory, they won't do any damage. Through all of this she hasn't notified the senate as to what is going on. When they find out, and they will, she will be removed from office.

"President Organ-Solo is still well liked among many of the charter members of the Republic and there will be internal bickering which will result in the power structure I mentioned earlier."

"How do you know all this?" Senator Oprank asked.

"I have my sources." Snotzenexer could see that this was not well received and decided to elaborate with a lie. "The Denorians are not advanced technologically and their communiqué with the Republic was transmitted on a wide unsecured frequency. Anyone can track the asteroids and ships. I just put one and one and one together." Snotzenexer chuckled. "You don't get to be president of the Imperial Varion Bank by sitting on your hands.

"I'm not asking you to do anything right now. I'm not even asking you to be prepared to join the Republic. All I'm doing is informing you as to what is taking place so that you will better be able to handle the situation, and my bank, in return, will be existing in the most secure situation possible. That is, after all, my goal." Snotzenexer rose from the table, declaring that the meeting was over. It had gone well.

Chapter 7 "The Arsonist"

Luke rolled over, wishing he could stay in bed just a little bit longer. He glanced at his chrono, wondering why he had woken up in the first place. Five minutes later he was limping across the landing pad, shoeless and shirtless. Mara was standing outside the ship with hands on hips, scowling at the tardy Jedi Master. "What is this world coming to? I almost left without you."

Luke looked at her, catching his breath. He was holding the rest of his clothes in his arms and one or two other items he thought he should bring for the trip. "You wouldn't have left with out me," he replied, though if he had truly thought that he wouldn't have raced out to the landing pad half dressed.

Mara continued her routine system checks as Luke went inside. A few minutes later he emerged more composed and helped his captain with her inspection. "You two weren't going to leave without saying good-bye, were you?" Both of them looked up to see Han and the twins standing at the edge of the platform.

"I'd sooner kiss a wookiee," Mara replied, though scolded herself immediately afterwards. The insult that she tossed around so freely everywhere else didn't fit so well since Han could produce a wookiee in a second to call her bluff.

"How long are you going to be gone?" Jaina asked.

Luke paused, wondering for the first time how he was going to get back to Coruscant after he had finished his business in the Varion system. "I don't know. Probably three weeks tops."

"Behave yourself you two," Han said with a mischievous grin. He didn't let them respond to the statement by turning around and leaving, content with his farewells. Jacen and Jaina stayed a bit longer and watched the ship take off into the rising sun. The sun always looked nice rising on the uneven city landscape of Coruscant, and more so with a ship disappearing into it.

Jaina looked at her brother staring at the disappearing ship. "You still have a crush on her, don't you?"

Jacen blinked the sun out of his eyes and returned his sister's stare. "She's old enough to be our mother." Jaina didn't respond, protesting that her question wasn't answered adequately. "It's more like a fascination," Jacen admitted. "She lives like Dad used to. Flying from one planet to another, seeing the whole galaxy and getting paid for it."

"That's hardly the life that Dad led, to hear him tell it," Jaina responded. "I don't think that Mara has to worry about random boardings or shooting her way off a planet."

"Still," Jacen argued, "it's better than hanging around here."

"I don't know if Uncle Luke would be too proud of you if you put your skills to use as a trader."

"Maybe not, but there's got to be something I can do during peace time." Jaina knew what her brother meant. Now that they had all but eradicated the Empire, she and her brother had no one to protect. All of the Jedi on record had spent almost their whole life fighting the Dark Side. That war seemed to be won. The only life style known for Jedi was fighting or solitary. Jaina and Jacen didn't like either.

The twins turned to head back inside and catch some breakfast when they saw two of the docking crew coming out of the hangar to their right. Jacen recognized one of the men as Jerry Switchen, the chief of the palace dock crew. "Another ship coming in?" Jacen asked, turning his head back to the horizon and picked out a small ship with his advanced vision.

"Yea," Jerry responded, "and the first shift doesn't start for another hour, which means I'm a little short on man power. I don't suppose you two want to give me a hand."

Jacen looked at his sister and shrugged his shoulders. "Sure, we got a little extra time on our hands. What's the ship got?"

"Oh, some new furnishings for that wing they are restoring. I think the stuff originates from Fintron. It's some young punk pilot. I'll probably have to pay an arm and a leg for the stuff." Jacen knew what the veteran dockworker was talking about. These days, the chief paid the pilot directly, allowing the Republic hierarchy to reimburse the chief in lump sums instead of having to deal with each trade ship that came in.

The ship glided in gracefully and alighted gently on its pilons in the center of the concentric circles marked on the pad. After a few short moments, Eranadis Palpatine walked out of the ship holding a small data pad. The Imperial operative seemed to not notice the four people standing ready to unload his ship, but was intent at what was written on the pad. "Which one of you is Chief Switchen?" Eran asked without looking up.

Jerry looked at Jacen with disgust, telling the young Jedi what a lifetime of dealing with pilots had done to him. "That'd be me," the chief responded. "What can I do to help you sir?"

Eran finally looked up, but his eyes met only those of Jerry, apparently discounting the others for underlings. "Who do I have to see about payment?"

"That would also be me."

"I don't know what your policy is, but I'd like to work out the payment before unloading. It's just so that I don't have to worry about damage during the unloading."

"I understand."

While Jerry and Eran looked at his cargo and worked out an acceptable price, Jacen was trying to think about how much he already disliked this guy. His attitude was one of total superiority toward everyone else, and Jacen could tell that this guy only thought about the money and really cared nothing for the quality of his work. He looked at his sister to see if she was getting the same response, but was rather startled to see her reaction. He was startled by the sly smile on her face. Jaina had seen through Eran's act right away. She could also tell that he was new at this job and he tried to eliminate any potential communication problems by going right to the head of the operation. Underneath the act she could see that he was just like she and her brother, just a member of the younger generation trying to find their niche in a galaxy that was just regaining some stability after chaos. Of course on of the main reasons that Jacen and Jaina were looking at Eran differently was because there was a certain chemistry that was possible with the latter pairing that wasn't quite accepted between the former.

After a few minutes Jerry motioned to the three people waiting on the edge of the platform that they were ready to start unloading. Jacen led the group toward the ship with the actual dockworker pulling an anti-grav sled taking up the rear. Jacen walked right past Eran, giving him the cold shoulder. Eran didn't seem to notice as the Jedi removed an entire sofa from the back of the ship by himself. Jacen walked back toward the palace holding the long couch by one armrest, performing an impossible balancing act with the length of the sofa sticking out away from him. When Jaina walked past the Imperial agent, Eran's icy demeanor changed instantly.

Jaina began to struggle with a relatively small loveseat that she normally could have handle as easily as her brother had carried the huge couch. "Here, let me help you with that," Eran said, brushing past Jerry as if he wasn't there. The pilot stuck his data pad into his back pocket and helped Jaina get the couch out of the ship. The two stood still, one at each end of the short piece of furniture, looking at each other over its cushions. "You gonna walk?"

"Sorry," Jaina quickly said, and set off at a pace that nearly sent Eran falling over backwards as his back was to their destination. His coordination saved him and he got his feet under him in time to save his ego. "How'd you get stuck with a shipment like this?"

"What do you mean?" Earn asked.

"I mean usually this type of stuff will be shipped directly by the company who manufactured it. You know, to insure that it arrives uninjured."

"Are you trying to say that I don't look competent?" Eran's smile betrayed any malice that might have other wise accompanied the question. Eran dodged the topic of his unusual cargo with a question of his own. "So how does a young woman like yourself get stuck working as a dock hand?"

"Oh, I don't work here, I'm just giving Jerry a hand because he's short on workers this morning. Usually ships don't come in this early."

"I guess I'm not used to Coruscant's time clock. This is my first visit."

The two were just arriving at the door to the inside of the palace when Jacen emerged. Jacen gave the two people with the loveseat a quick glance and scowled at his sister's flirtations. Jaina gave him a mirrored look. Eran didn't miss much and he saw the exchange. "He's my brother," Jaina said before Eran could ask, although after a quick glance at the two, Eran had already figured that much out. "He thinks I'm being lazy."

Eran was going to ask what she meant, but from his vantagepoint walking backwards he saw Jacen remove a cabinet from his ship that three normal men would have struggled with. Jaina saw the look on Eran's face and realized what Jacen must be doing. "We're Jedi," she said, adding a hint of mischievous to her voice. "I think he likes to show off."

Jaina's comment reminded him that he was working for the Empire right now and needed to be careful. He also remembered that he had a mission to perform. As the couple entered the palace, Eran kept his eyes open for any hint of security or any suggestion of what his best course of action would be.

They wove their way through the halls of the palace for half a minute before they encountered their first guard. "Good morning, Jaina. Who's your moving partner?"

Jaina smiled at the guard and Eran was immensely glad he had hooked up with her. "He's clean, Fren. I promise we'll just be in and out. Do you know where they're putting all this stuff for the new wing?"

"Haven't a clue, princess, I just work here. My best guess is to place it next to the sofa your brother dragged in here a moment ago." Fren paused while he opened the door for the couple.

"Might just want to keep it open," Jaina said when she saw that the door lock required both a code and a card for opening. "We'll be in and out a bit in the next fifteen minutes. We have a whole ship load of stuff to unload."

"I don't know," Fren said storing a grin right behind the frown. "That sounds like a breach of protocol, princess."

"If you get fired, just send 'em to me."

The two exchanged a laugh as the guard locked the door opened and moved aside for the two to pass. Eran looked at Jaina carefully when they were through the door and out of earshot. "Princess?"

Jaina laughed. "Yea, it's a nickname that most of the palace staff made up for me. I guess when I was younger, I was sort of a terror and gave them all headaches. Now that I'm back they all treat me with mock respect. I guess the name stems from my mom."

"Then your Jaina Solo," Eran calculated.

Jaina bowed as much as the loveseat allowed her. "I'm afraid that you have the advantage. I don't even know your first name.

"Eran, Eran Plap-" Eran pretended to choke on something and coughed, "uh Eran Palpoin." His last name wasn't really appropriate in the current situation. Jaina didn't notice his slip and the pair continued down the hallway at a leisurely pace.

The pace was all too leisurely for Jacen who was following the group. Not only was this pilot a stuck up prick that was too good to recognize simple dockworkers, but also he was an extremely slow worker. Now to top it off, Jacen was sure that he was trying to hit on his sister.

Eran and Jaina finally made it to a lounge area and saw the couch that Jacen had carried in. The carpet in the room looked very elaborate and was covered with an assortment of old style light fixtures, shelves, end tables, and other antique furniture. "Going for the old fashioned look in this new wing." Eran walked over to one of the tall, electric light fixtures standing next to the far door and turned it on. "Hey it actually works."

"It's not a new wing," Jaina said as they sat the loveseat down, "it's actually quite old. It used to store all the financial records for the republic, but we're transferring them to another part of the building." Eran looked over to the corner of the room and saw a group of two non-descript computers. The records were just sitting there, right out in the open. Jaina saw what he was looking at. "They are a little behind schedule in the other part of the palace. Or maybe they're just ahead of schedule here. I don't really know, but they're storing the records here until their ready for them where ever they're taking them." Jaina laughed a little. "I guess I really don't know much about it."

"Break time's over," Jacen said as he put down the huge cabinet he had hauled the incredible distance. Jaina gave him a sarcastic scowl, but Jacen returned a sincere one.

"What's wrong with him?" Eran asked quietly in Jaina's ear.

"I don't know," Jaina responded loud enough so that Jacen could hear. "I guess he thinks we're getting paid per hour or something."

As they left the room, Eran gave the lounge on last quick glance. He had his plan all worked out. Before they were even out of the palace, they met Jacen coming back in with his third piece of large furniture. He didn't miss his chance to sneer at them again, but Jaina didn't waste a response on him. Eran, however, locked eyes with the upset Jedi and they transmitted something between them at a level that Eran hadn't experienced before. Eran blinked away from the confrontation and shook out the chill that had crept into his spine. He had a bad feeling about that one.

Eran ran a few steps to meet up with Jaina outside, deciding not to say anything about his little encounter with her brother. "So what kind of stuff do you usually cart around?"

"Oh, you know, a little bit of everything. I've transported food, electronic supplies, some rudimentary building supplies, and even animals once. I don't think I'll do that again though. One of the gundarks got out of its cage, and I nearly crashed."

Eran climbed into the back of the ship, when they got back to it, as all of the stuff at the edge of the exit was taken already. Eran pretended to fuss with another large sofa, but only managed to knock off one of the cushions. "I think we better leave this one for your over-aggressive brother." Jaina laughed at the comment and didn't see Eran slip a small fuel cell under the cushion as he put it back on the couch.

Eran moved over to a smaller dresser. "I think this is more our size," he said. He took his time inching it over to the edge of the open door, and was rewarded when Jacen made it back to the ship. "Hey, buddy," Eran addressed him for the first time, "we left a nice heavy one for you." As he spoke, he was careful to avoid eye contact, not wanting the same confrontation.

Jacen too was wary of this strange pilot, for he had felt just as unnerved at the meeting a few minutes ago. All of his warning bells were going off in his head, but he couldn't think on how to act on any of them. Instead, Jacen took the couch that Eran had pointed to and left in a huff.

"You two are striking up quite the friendship," Jaina said, helping Eran ease the dresser from the ship. "You'll have to come back someday so you can get to know each other better."

"I just might," Eran said with a wink. As they walked back across the landing pad together Eran managed to pivot the front of his foot in a large grease spot that he had seen earlier, getting a fair amount of the oil on his foot. The two of them maneuvered through the palace again, Eran consciously walking on the outside of his foot, not wanting to track the grease on the spotless floor. When they reached the lounge, Jacen was just putting the couch down, and just as Eran had figured, the area was pretty much filled.

"It looks like we'll have to go to another room," Jaina said. Jacen had set the couch down right next to and parallel with the narrow walkway. Eran and Jaina walked toward the far door in the room, barely fitting the dresser through the small gap that Jacen left. Eran gauged himself from the light fixture that he had turned on earlier and placed a large grease smudge on the carpet. Eran glanced at the couch Jacen had put down and saw that the cushion with the fuel cell under it was almost right next to the grease spot.

When they got to the door, Eran faked clumsiness and tried to rearrange the dresser so it would fit through the doorway. In his fit of movement, he managed to knock the electric light backwards. He hurried forward after the dirty deed, hoping that he had hit his mark. The hallway passed the lounge are took a sharp turn and Jaina was already moving down the perpendicular passage when the bare light bulb hit the floor, exploding right on Eran's grease spot. Eran had performed all of the actions rather fluidly so that any camera that might have been watching was oblivious to his guilt. The hallway Eran and Jaina were moving down now was pretty long, and they walked for almost two minutes before they got to another room where they could place the dresser.

As they walked back down the hall Eran smelled smoke long before Jaina said anything. "Do you smell smoke?" she asked. "There can't be a fire. Not in the palace." Jaina's walk turned into a jog, and as smoke began to billow down the hall, she broke into a sprint. When Eran turned the corner, he was rather pleased at his handiwork. Almost all of the mostly wooden furniture was on fire, and smoke and flame filled the room completely, allowing zero visibility. "We'll have to get through it. There's no where to go backwards."

"You go first," Eran said. "I'll be right behind you."

Jaina nodded and ran down the narrow flameless passageway. Eran silently ran over to the computer corner, only to find that one of the carts was already in flames. He remembered where he had seen the data chips and reached blindly through the smoke next to one of the consoles. His fingers closed around the five circular chips, each no bigger than his palm but storing tons of data. He wasn't really sure that these were what the two admirals wanted, but he didn't have the luxury to check. He slipped them into his back pocket, and leaped toward the door, traversing a wall of flames to do so. Eran landed in the hallway, rolling to the floor to put out any fire on his clothes. He had left the room only five seconds after Jaina, and she had no idea that he had taken a slightly different route.

"Are you okay?" Jaina asked, seeing that he had gotten a but singed.

"Fine," he coughed, "you?"

Jaina nodded. "We need to contact someone about this thing." One step ahead of her, five men with chemical tanks raced down the hall toward them. Jaina and Eran scrambled out of the way as the men went to work, spraying thick white foam into the room.

Eran and Jaina stood up and watched from a safe distance. Neither of them could think of anything to say. "Step away from him Jaina." They both spun around and saw Jacen standing in the middle of the hall. "Step away from him," he repeated.

Jaina had seen that look on her brother's face before and recognized his body position. He was ready to fight. Jaina shuddered. There was no one in the galaxy that could match Jacen in a fight. Even Anakin, their incredibly Force strong brother could only fight him to a draw, and that was when Jacen only used one lightsaber. Jaina saw that both of his weapons were still dangling from his belt. "What are you talking about?"

"He lied to us," Jacen said. "He's not from Fintron where his supposed shipment came from. You know where he is from?"

"I never said I was from anywhere," Eran said calmly though his mind was racing.

"He's from the Varion system, at least that's what his ship's log reports."

"You went looking through my ship," Eran said, not having to fake the disgust in his voice.

"That doesn't mean anything!" Jaina said, seeing that the tension that had been building between the two was about to explode.

"You don't understand," Jacen said back. "The Varion system is where Uncle Luke just went with Mara to check some reported Imperial activity. I don't believe in coincidences."

"Are you trying to say I'm an Imperial agent?" Eran said, trying to make the statement sound as preposterous as possible. Inwardly he underwent his calming routine.

Jacen felt the strength grow in his foe and drew one of his lightsabers. "How'd you start the fire? What'd you do, knock over that light you turned on?"

"Jacen!" Jaina yelled. "It was an accident. Besides, he was with me the whole time. He didn't do it!"

"Come on Jaina, open your eyes. No fire burns that fast." He turned back to Eran. "What'd you do, hide a fuel cell in one of the couches I brought in?"

Eran tried to shake off all of the direct hits and blew Jacen off with a shake of his head. "This is crazy. I'm leaving." He tried to walk past the Jedi, but Jacen ignited his lightsaber and blocked the path. Eran had never seen one of the fabulous weapons before, but immediately recognized its strength and perfect balance. He took a few steps back. Eran was quick to notice that there was another of the weapons dangling from Jacen's side.

Eran took another measured step back and turned back and to his right toward Jaina as if to ask a question. Instead he spun back around, his right foot sweeping in front of him at waist level and knocking Jacen's right, sword hand wide. He executed the move so fluently that Jaina didn't even see him kicking, only Jacen's reaction. Jacen was so startled by the kick, that he couldn't get his defenses in place in time for Eran's follow up attack. With his back now turned to the Jedi after the spin, Eran continued his spiral motion bringing his left elbow into Jacen's stomach as his right grabbed for the other lightsaber.

Jacen collected himself instantly after the attack. He still blocked the hall, but now Eran had a weapon. Eran had not yet ignited it, but his thumb was hovering over the trigger. "I'm just a pilot with a little combat training," he said calmly. "I'm sorry about the fire, but I didn't start it. I don't want to hurt you, I just want to get back to my ship."

Jacen had heard enough. He didn't buy any of what the Imperial was saying. He already had all the proof he needed when he had watched Eran's facial reactions to his earlier accusations. "Jacen, please, step aside," Jaina pleaded.

Jacen outwardly relaxed, but Eran didn't buy it and as the Jedi exploded into motion, Eran had his stolen weapon activated and parrying before the strike arrived. They sparred furiously for fifteen straight seconds, all the while Jaina was screaming at them. During that span, Eran made a complete diagnostic of his opponent. Surely this was the most experienced fighter he had ever faced, but he had one glaring weakness. Jacen had been trained by Luke, not in himself an exceptional swordsman. Luke relied on his Force skill to allow him to anticipate and react. Obi Wan had been able to teach him most of the textbook strikes and parries, but there was no real skill there. Because of this, Luke had only been able to pass on the most simple of moves and routines, knowing that his students' Force skill would augment those moves far past of what they were normally capable. Jacen had even been an exception to the rule, working hard on his own to invent new moves and styles of fighting. He went so far as to introduce a second blade into his routine. But among all this training and talent one thing was missing: improvisation. When Jacen started a low thrust, the move finished as a low thrust. When he attacked high in a slash, it would always be blocked at the shoulder with a vertical blade. Eran noticed that every once in a while Jacen changed the location of his strike, but the move was still the same and the parry likewise only changed in location and not style.

Eran had been taught how to fight as a kid by a street gang leader. He had never been to a formal school and was taught only how to improvise, to keep your opponent guessing. He had learned all of the text book moves when he had to fight off nobles who had caught him stealing from them.

The fifteen-second routine that Eran absorbed from Jacen now was almost identical to every opening flurry he had intercepted before except Jacen's attacks came much harder and faster. Instead of parrying them with the normal combinations, Eran used risky moves to counter the attack, not wanting Jacen to get into a familiar rhythm.

Eran found room to attack at the end of the flurry and swung low for Jacen's knee. The Jedi swung his weapon down perpendicular to the ground for the usual parry, as Eran knew he would. Instead of following through with the swipe, Eran turned the blade down so it grazed the floor and didn't come close to Jacen's legs. The Jedi's block met air, and he move to his left, off balance. Eran swung his blade up and around, coming in high and from Jacen's right. The off balanced fighter had to bring his blade all the way across his body to block the attack, but Eran simply rotated his blade up this time, sending his blade tip across the ceiling. Jacen had been leaning left and threw all of his momentum to the right only to meet air again. Eran ended the serious of fakes by bringing his blade down in front of him and extending his arm out as if he meant to skewer Jacen on the end of his blade. Jacen was already leaning back from his last move and now stutter stepped backwards on his heals, waving his lightsaber frantically in front of his chest to ward off the thrust.

With three simple fakes Eran had put the skilled Jedi severely off balanced and totally out of position. If Jacen had been able to make contact with Eran's blade at any time during the routine, it would have stopped Eran's flow, and immediately restored the equilibrium in the battle. When you made contact with someone, you knew where they were and where they were going. With Eran's fakes, Jacen could only guess.

Eran removed all of that guess work by pressing his clear advantage. He swiped in hard from above repeatedly, recognizing that his backpedaling opponent was already having a hard time getting his feet under his center of gravity. One of Eran's attacks went extra high, and Jacen, thinking it another fake, didn't bother to parry the sword as it cut through the unnoticed light fixture hanging over Jacen's head. His Force heightened senses allowed him to jump to the right as the decorative, glass ornament fell. As Jacen flattened himself against the wall, Eran shot past on the left.

Jacen was quick to follow after the light had finished its shattering dance on the floor. A few hallway turns later, Eran ran through the open doorway where the guards had been stationed. Both guards were absent now, no doubt because they were fighting the fire. As the hurried young man ran past, he swung the lightsaber back into the locking mechanism, releasing the hold on the door. Jacen had been following close and ran headlong into the door. He fell backwards hard, and took a moment to shake the cobwebs out of his head before he got up and attacked the door with his lightsaber.

Eran made it to the landing pad and was relieved to see that Perry and the other dockworker had finished unloading his ship. Eran was also glad that he had been paid before he unloaded. Perry was more than a little startled to see the pilot running toward them at full speed carrying a lightsaber. The chief didn't try to stop him as he leaped into his ship, started the engines, and began to take off with the back door still open. Moments later Jacen came running out of the palace but saw only Eran's thrusters fire as he jumped away from the pad.

Jaina was quick out of the palace following her brother. She didn't know if she should be relieved to see that Eran had gotten away. She was thinking that it might be better if Jacen had been able to defeat Eran and bring him to face the made-up charges so that everyone could see that he was innocent. Now Jacen would likely be brooding. Jaina didn't really understand what the incident had done to Jacen.

Ever since Jacen had returned from Hastrin he had followed his younger brother's advice - Justice instead of Revenge. He had walked the streets of Coruscant, daring a criminal to make a move against anyone. In reality, he was using this new outlet to vent his penned up hatred. Jacen hated what the Empire had done to him and his sister, and he knew outwardly that that anger was bad for him, but inwardly he couldn't bring himself to the calm that his sister had been able to reach.

Now he had found an emissary from the remnants of the Empire that had captured and tormented he and his sister. Eran had also beaten Jacen in a straight up fight, something that no one else had ever done since he had reached his prime. The fact that Eran had done so quite easily only added to the wounded pride that fueled Jacen's anger.

Jaina saw the barely controlled rage in her brother as he turned his gaze from the glow of the departing ship's repulsers, his eyes almost as red. "Just because he beat you doesn't make him evil."

Jacen spun on his sister, and she actually shrank back from him. "You just don't get it do you? Have your hormones made you blind to the truth? Just because he might be cute and charming doesn't make him good. He started that fire back there. If you'd open your eyes you would see that as clearly as you see me."

"Why?" Jaina asked, seeing a definite chink in Jacen's armor.

"Why does the Empire do anything? Why did they turn us into killing machines for their every whim? They are evil, Jaina. They are the dark; we are the light. Only this time it's the darkness that gets snuffed out." Jacen spun back around, and strode away with a definite purpose.

"What do you mean to do?" Jaina asked the question though she knew the answer. "You're going after him, aren't you? You're heading down a Dark path, Jacen?" Her words didn't slow him in the slightest. "Revenge does not become a Jedi."

"I'm going to go get my lightsaber back."

Jacen disappeared into the palace, leaving Jaina standing on the pad. She knew where he was going, but she had to tell someone before she followed him. "Anakin," she said to herself. Her brother would surely have felt Jacen's anger by now. Though he trailed in years, both she and Jacen recognized him as the superior mind when it came to the Force. She ran into the palace and almost instantly ran into her brother.

"What's happened to Jacen?" Anakin asked.

"He's going off to chase down one of the pilots who just delivered a shipment of furniture to the palace. He has it in his mind that he is an Imperial agent. You have to tell Mom and Dad that we are going."

"We?" Anakin echoed. The young Jedi had felt Jacen fighting earlier and then the rage when Eran had escaped. Anakin knew that if Jacen caught up to him he would kill him. Or maybe the other way around. Jaina began to walk past her brother, but Anakin grabbed her arm. "Be careful."

"I know. I'll bring him back."

"Not Jacen," Anakin corrected, although they both knew that dealing with Jacen would require great care. Anakin had felt something else.

"Eran?"

"He is not all that he seems."

"Is he bad?" Jaina asked, not wanting to believe that Jacen might be right.

Anakin shook his head slowly, trying to sort through his feelings. "Not in the same way that the Empire is bad, but powerful. There are different levels of the Force."

"He's a Jedi?" Jaina didn't want to believe the amazing coincidence.

Again Anakin shook his head, but couldn't think of a response. Instead, he let go of Jaina's arm and let her go chase their brother.

***

The scavenger stood in the hangar.

"I'm leaving now."

"Very good, Jacen," one of the techies said. "I'll see if I can get you clearance. You should be able to lift off in about fifteen minutes."

"I'm leaving now."

Something in the young man's voice told the worker that this was not a suggestion or even a request, but a statement of the utmost truth. "You need to get clearance from the fli-" his voice was cut off as he gasped for air.

Jacen walked past the man as he collapsed to his knees. The Scavenger wasn't much to look at. Made from bits and pieces that he, Lowbacca, and his sister had gathered (or scavenged) from the forest around the academy, the ship resembled a pile of used parts. Though the outer shell was quite old and unsightly, the interior, and more importantly, the engine and computers were quite new and in stupendous working order.

Jaina ran into the hangar as her brother entered the underside of the ship. "Jacen!" The scream got no response, and she ran toward the ship. She nearly tripped over the tech as he lay by her feet. He groaned as he sucked in huge amounts of air. The fact that the fallen man was rubbing his neck told Jaina all she needed to know about how close to the brink, or how far over the brink, her brother was.

She raced up the gangway just as it started to close. "Get off my ship!"

"Your ship?!" Jaina screamed back at the voice that had greeted her. "I had more to do with the construction of this hunk 'o junk than you did."

"You're not coming with me, and that's final."

"Oh, yea," Jaina said, as she walked into the large cockpit, finding her brother already seated behind the controls preparing for take off, "who's going to stop me - you?"

Jacen leaped out of his chair and spun around. This time Jaina didn't back down, but stared back hard at her brother. The battle they held right there was intense, more intense than any physical struggle they might have had. They fought wills, each trying to impose themselves on the other, trying to win out by deflating their centers of concentration.

Jacen finally slumped, realizing that as twins, they were equal in many respects, Force strength being one of them. "You can come," he said, his voice very much subdued, "but realize that I am going after him for one reason - justice."

"We can't have the Empire running in and out of the palace at will, can we?" Something in Jaina's tone betrayed the sincerity, but Jacen ignored it, waving his sister into the copilot's chair. Five minutes later they entered hyperspace on the same course settings that Eran had jumped out with.

Chapter 8 "Race Against Time"

Deep on the edge of inhabited space eighty asteroids came hurtling out of the Danzig system. They had been heading for a distant sun which had only appeared as a bright blur as they had traversed through countless gas clouds and nebulas, hindering their vision of what was ahead. Now as they emerged from the chaotic system in which they had originated their flight of destruction, the sun in front of them, still a little less than four days away, was a bright glowing furnace. The space rocks had had an initially stupendous speed, but due to the swirling gravity wells that they had been forced to cross, their speeds had been reduced considerably.

Each asteroid had a small electric timer on it that finally counted down to zero. The elapsed timer armed the explosives and connected the circuit between the solar sensor and the explosives. The two devices were supposed to have been connected on the exact opposite sides of the huge boulders so that when the solar sensors on the rotating asteroids faced the sun, the explosives in the rear would ignite. This happened successfully on sixty of the eighty asteroids. Seven of the rocks didn't explode at all, and the other 13 exploded but since the explosives weren't exactly opposite the sensor, they were sent off course. The successful wiring jobs resulted in not only accelerating the sixty asteroids, but also blew each of them into at least ten smaller rocks, each a few hundred tons in size.

These new, smaller projectiles now where flying along the same course only at about twice their previous speed.

***

Leia was relaxing in her family's living quarters. It had already been a stressful morning. She had governed a special senate meeting this morning to address some of the trade problems that the Republic had been having. The meeting had no potential stumbling blocks from the outset, just some tariff disagreements that had to be ironed out, but some of the members of senate had raised a stink. It was always the same section of the senate - the old Imperials. Leia hadn't liked allowing them into the senate back several years ago when they started to come pouring in. She had folded under the pressure, realizing that it was impossible to gather in former Imperial worlds without also gathering in former Imperials. So far none of them had shown the craving for power that had drove Palpatine to his prominence, but they were still a hassle.

The Republic was virtually tax free with regard to trade, not wanting relations with other worlds and governments to be strained. Other worlds were often not as kind. This meant that when trading with another government, the Republic had to pay a load of tariffs on imports, but got no compensation on their exports. It didn't make good business sense to spend more than you took in, but the Republic had been willing to live with it this long, as a very preferable alternative to the taxation that the old Empire had placed on its people. Some of the senate members didn't see it that way. They didn't remember the old Empire as a tax burden, but as a time of financial prosperity.

Leia sighed and sunk deeper into her chair. How hard would it be to resign? She didn't need to stay in command any longer. The threat from the Empire was over, wasn't it? What had Wedge said? "I think you are making the right decision, but not in the right way." Maybe he was right. Maybe she still was living in the days of the Rebellion where it was only her, Ackbar, and Mon Mothma. It had been easy to see what to do, and they had done it with success. Now maybe it was time to step aside and let some one else take over. The only thing that stopped her from doing so was that she was waiting for the Imperial members of the senate to come around. She had nightmares of the time when she would step down, and the whole assembly would breathe a collective sigh, "At last." They would waste no time in electing one of the Imperial senators she despised the most and within a week he would have transformed the Republic into a mirror of what the Empire had been. Short of a new Rebellion, Leia would be powerless to stop it.

Leia shrugged her shoulders and tried to burrow herself even deeper into her chair. There was another senate meeting after the noon meal and then it was meetings with several of the committees that wanted to propose more bills. At night there was another senate session to close out the day. Leia could already tell that this day was going to test her strength.

The chime on the door was the last thing she wanted to hear, but after reaching out with her little used Force sensitivity, she knew who it was. "Come."

Anakin walked through the open doorway a second later and immediately saw that his mom wasn't in the mood for any company, but his information couldn't really wait. "Rough morning?" His mother didn't reply, but tried to make her eyes resist their urge to roll back into her head. "I'm afraid that I have information that won't make it much better. Jacen and Jaina just left."

"Where'd they go?" Leia asked, knowing there had to be more to the story. Her kids ran off all the time, they were grown-up after all, so there had to be more to make it bad news.

"Jacen is convinced that the fire in the renovated wing wasn't an accident and is chasing the assumed culprit." Leia slumped as she remembered the latest addition to the bad morning. The palace had paid a pretty credit for most of the furniture. The third and final shipment had just come in this morning, and more than half of it had gone up in flames. "Jaina went with him, convinced that the accused is innocent. Jacen is rather fired up and might do something rash."

Leia had heard Luke tell her that her son had a small temper problem, but she had also been told that Jaina had always been there to keep him in check. She had to have faith that this trend would hold true. The door chimed again, and Leia responded.

Quite unexpectedly, Ransig walked through the door with a severe look on his face. "Why do I get the feeling that you have bad news?" Leia asked, though she had no idea how bad.

Ransig wasn't one for clever replies or he could have cushioned the blow some. "The asteroids heading for the Denorid system have altered their course. They will hit the populated worlds."

Leia was glad that she was sitting because her body became suddenly very weak. She had decided that she wasn't going to tell the Denorians about the asteroids for a while. She had to address the senate in two days, and she was pretty sure that she could convince the senate that with the Denorians as naive as they were concerning the happenings of space, they wouldn't understand what the Republic was doing, in fact they might even think that they were attacking their gods. At the same time they should send an emissary to the system to try and improve relations and educate the people to the truths about their sky at which time they would be able to tell them what the Republic had been doing to protect them. With that explanation Leia hoped the senate would understand that the ships she had sent to destroy the harmless asteroids were sent to protect the Denorians. Now it would look more like she was trying to save her own hide from lying when she told the representative from the system that there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

"What am I going to tell the senate now?" she said out loud. "When our ships intercept the rocks they will no longer be simply removing an annoyance but saving the lives of hundreds of people. That kind of relief aid has to be decided by the senate."

Ransig swallowed hard, and Leia could tell that more bad news was forth coming. "Actually, the asteroids have undergone an explosion and will no longer reach the planets in the same time span I had predicted."

"When?"

"Two days and six hours."

"How long until our ships reach the system?"

"Three days and fifteen hours."

"Is there nothing we can do?"

Ransig shrugged his shoulders. "It takes a little over four days to reach the Denorid system and we don't have anything closer. I am afraid that those rocks will hit the planets of the Denorid system. At their current size, they will cause mass destruction like the people of that system have never seen."

"Can you be ready to make a complete presentation, similar to the one you made yesterday, in about three hours?"

Ransig thought for a while. "I think so. Do you want me to address the special council again?"

"No," Leia said, "the whole assembly."

"Bu-"

"Mom." Ransig wasn't quite sure how to voice his complaint to the request and Anakin's interruption came at a good time. As soon as Anakin had heard the time constraints that were going to cost lives he had made his way over to computer mounted in the wall. Leia turned to look at her son and saw that he had been looking at star charts. "I think I can get a ship there in two days, four hours, thirty-seven minutes, and twelve seconds."

"You can't do tha-"

Leia cut off the science officer with a wave of her hand. She knew all about Anakin's amazing skills with computers and his uncanny ability to make complicated calculations quickly and accurately. Both Leia and Ransig walked over to the screen showing Anakin's proposed route. Hyperspace routes were never a straight line. The shortest distance between two places in space almost always traversed a planetary system and while it was often possible make it through the system without hitting a sun or planet, there was far too much space debris in populated systems to account for. A ship's sensors couldn't possibly account for all of the interplanetary travel that existed, or for that matter wouldn't be able to detect the countless satellites and probes that existed. It had been decided a long time ago that when calculating hyperspace jumps all computers would skirt around any and all planetary systems. Since you couldn't make sharp turns at light speed, this required long, looping routes.

There were two lines on the screen that Anakin was using. One was a long curved line that went around the two systems between Coruscant and the Denorid system. The other was a line that wavered only slightly. The line passed through the first system without any problem and some of the newer navigational computers might have picked that route, but the second system would have set off alarms in any computer ever invented. The line seemed to pass through both the system's sun and the second planet. "You can't do that!" Ransig said, pointing to the two astral bodies that were almost in-line with each other.

Anakin picked the location on the screen and magnified it. Once zoomed in, the three observers could see that the line passed neatly in between the two spheres. "The gravity wells would tear you off course and probably directly into the gas giant," Ransig said, referring to the third planet in the system.

"Actually, there is a seventeen hundred thirty two meter channel that is safe."

"And how in the world do you plan on hitting that channel in hyperspace?" A channel of that width was hard to hit at sub light, much less at hyperspace speed.

"All you need to do his enter the coordinates accurate to twelve decimal places."

Ransig almost laughed out loud at the ludicrous nature of the statement. "And where, my young friend, are you going to find a computer that will do those calculations in less than a day?"

Anakin told him the coordinates to twelve decimal places. Ransig seemed very flustered. He didn't know immediately why. It was either that this boy expected him to believe in the numbers he appeared to have pulled out of thin air, or this boy had just performed a mathematical miracle. Ransig looked at the flight plan on the screen. He could agree with the integer parts of the coordinates, and the first two decimals seemed like a reasonably good guess, but as for the rest of it, neither he, nor anyone else on Coruscant could confirm the numbers.

Leia didn't need to have the coordinates confirmed, already having total faith in her son. She walked over to the communications console in her living quarters. She quickly entered a call to Wedge's quarters, sincerely hoping that the admiral was in. A few minutes later she was rewarded with his face on the screen. "What is it?" Leia told him. Wedge's face went into a look of horror, understanding immediately what all of this implied for Leia, the Republic, and most of all for the people in the Denorid system. "What can I do?"

"Do you have any more ships available?"

"Most of our ships are being refitted, but I do have one space worthy cruiser, although she doesn't have a full crew and is minus one fighter squadron."

Leia didn't think that sounded too bad, but she had no idea that that one missing squadron was the 185th. "Anakin has a hyperspace route that can get you there an hour before the asteroids hit if you can leave in about a half hour."

Wedge shook his head. "It will take at least an hour to get the engines on line."

"Best case scenario - when can you leave?"

"Best case? An hour and fifteen minute tops, but more realistically more than an hour and a half."

"I'm sending Anakin up to the ship. You need to have that ship leave in less than an hour and a half."

"Send your son to my personal ship in hangar bay eight. I'll go with him."

Leia turned around, but Anakin was out the door. She looked at Ransig and shrugged. She was playing with fire again. She had just pulled the last space-worthy ship away from Coruscant, ordering yet another military maneuver without the senate's approval.

***

Eran looked at his sensors and saw that the ship that had followed him from Coruscant was slowly gaining on him. He had a big lead, but it would be gone in a day. Chases in hyperspace were rather strange. You might be able to catch up with someone but what could you do. You can't conduct combat in hyperspace. If you fired a weapon, you'd run into it before it cleared your ship. The only time that the chases ever turned into anything is when the ships dropped out of hyperspace.

Eran was headed to the Varion system, but he knew very well that he couldn't return there with a trail in tow. At the same time he needed to get this information back to the admirals or Sanson would throw him out an airlock. He flipped on the communications controls and briefly examined the decryption options. Eran was no slouch when it came to dealing in code, and he knew a good encryption when he saw one. There was no way that anyone would intercept this, and his trails would have no clue as to where it was headed. Admiral Snotzenexer had left instructions in the ship in case of an emergency and had given Eran the location where he could be reached. Still not having looked at them himself, Eran inserted each one of the data chips into the ship's computer and uploaded them to the given location.

***

Jacen stared intently, trying to think through the numbers involved in calculating the distance between the ship. His mind was too clogged with other thoughts at the moment and the result wouldn't come to him. "We'll catch them. We are faster."

It was a stupid thing to say really. Hyperspace was more like a place than a speed. If you went any slower you would be in normal space, and if you went any faster you would cease to exist as a finite, transient, three-dimensional object. But the principals involved were the same - their ship would get them where they going quicker than Eran's ship would. It just didn't have anything to do with speed. The nav computer programmed the hyperspace jump according to the strength and nimbleness of the engine. If it were a strong engine, the computer wouldn't skirt gravity wells as much as normal. If the engine could handle sharper turns, then the computer wouldn't make the path around a system as loopy. The scavenger was just better than Eran's shuttle.

"We'll catch up with him in about twenty hours, but then what?" Jaina knew well the pointlessness of chasing someone while both of the parties stayed in hyperspace. "He is apparently heading to the Varion system, but we'll beat him by an hour. If he is Imperial then we will jump into the middle of the Empire. If he isn't then we will have caught an innocent man far from home."

Jacen hadn't really thought through everything, he just wanted to catch the little, Imperial arsonist. Jaina looked at her brother remembering the countless warnings that their teachers at the Academy had given them. They had each predicted that Jacen's obvious skill in fighting was going to get him into trouble one day. Jacen had, until an hour ago, never lost, and Jaina could tell that it really got to him. It was almost as if he felt that he had failed as a Jedi, the protector of peace. His reckless actions now only gave Eran the advantage if they ever met again. Jaina just hoped that Eran would be gentle.

Chapter 9 "Chapter Eleven"

Han walked into what remained of the lounge and looked at the two men trying to clean up. They were both off in the corner fiddling with what was left of the two computers. "I suppose you wouldn't be able to tell if anything was missing, could you?"

The two men looked severely startled as Han spoke. Neither of them had even realized that he had entered. "Why would anything be missing?" one of them asked as if it was a totally absurd question.

"Well, my son has this notion that this fire was set on purpose. I've looked around the room and all I can see is furniture and those two computers sitting comfortably in the corner. I thought to myself, 'Self, why would anyone want to set this room on fire? It can't be because they wanted to burn the building down, because there was no way that the fire could have spread. So it has to be something in this room. Since the person who is suspected to have set the fire brought in the furniture, it doesn't make sense that that was his target, considering the fact that he could have vented it into space without any witnesses. Therefore, the only reason for the fire is the existence of those two computers.' So I'll ask you again, is anything missing? Because if there is, then we have a suspected thief as well as an arsonist; however, if nothing is missing, then we simply have someone who wanted to destroy two computers."

The two men looked at Han, not really catching all of the sarcasm that he lent into his explanation, but understanding the last little bit. "Well, you see, it's all pretty melted. The screens are both blown out and the terminal cases are both destroyed. The keys on the keyboard have all melded into one key. Even the data chip box was rui-" he stopped. He was holding a very warped container, yet at the same time, a very empty container. The man swore violently under his breath.

Both men looked at Han, and he got the strange feeling that he was in the wrong place. "Who started this fire?"

Han gave them a blank look. "All I know is that some pilot delivered some furniture to this new wing and left with two of my children hot on his trail."

"Who else have you told about this?"

"No one. Why? What's going on?"

"This is a major security breach and we can't discuss it with you."

"I'm the husband of the chief of state. I'm no security risk."

Both men looked at Han, recognizing him for the first time and also realizing who the children he spoke of were. "Where is you wife?"

"She just left for a senate meeting. I'm afraid she will be gone for most of the evening at different meetings."

"Then she will have to cancel them. What we have to tell her is of the utmost importance."

"Just tell me. I can relay the message."

The men regarded the former smuggler as if he had grown another ear. "We will wait in your quarters until your wife returns, at which point we will tell her what we need to."

"Okay," Han said, not thrilled about having these two weirdoes in his quarters. "She should be done with the senate meeting in about an hour or two." With that, the men followed Han back to the Solo wing.

***

Ransig stood in front of the computer screen, explaining again the flight of the asteroids. There were a few things different with his demonstration this time. First of all the screen he was in front of was taller than he was, the asteroids were no longer harmless projectiles, and instead of an audience of four, he spoke to a crowd numbering closer to four hundred, and that didn't take into account all of the people watching it on holo-vid.

"As you can see, from the increased speed that the asteroids have attained, the majority of them will no longer fall into the sun. About half of them will hug the sun closely and fly towards Forinad. The rest, and majority of the rocks, will fly right past the sun, altering their course only slightly and the wide spread will hit Denor and Trewist."

The senators and aides sitting in the assembly chamber were silent for a while. "How much destruction are we talking about?" a voice asked from the crowd.

Ransig swallowed. "We're not exactly sure how many small rocks there are, but the largest ones are a few hundred tons in size. When a rock that big strikes a planet with as much speed as these rocks have, the result is devastating. I would guess that the largest rocks would produce a one hundred-kiloton explosive blast. On the outset that doesn't look so bad until you realize that there are over six hundred of these things."

The chamber was instantly filled with chatter and commotion. The huge switchboard that controlled the senators' microphones did so with a priority status, always giving the most senior senators the chance to speak first. Since everyone was hitting their microphone switch, only one man could be heard, and it was the most prominent member of the senate. Senator Haln was also Leia's least liked senator. He was the Imperial senator that annoyed her the most. He was old and had no intention of taking Leia's spot. He was neither rash nor impractical like so many of the younger, former Imperials. It was his quiet demeanor that annoyed Leia. He had a way of making everything he said sound so right, Leia had to look hard to see that he was saying the same thing her more volatile opponents were, only in a much more convincing fashion. "How long did you know about this disaster?"

Leia's mic was always turned on. She, Senator Trent, and Senator Belsiphvin were up front along side Ransig. Ransig decided it was time he took a back seat and let Leia answer the question. "We were informed about the asteroids a little over a day ago. They were originally believed to be harmless and it was thought best that a small detachment should be sent to dispose of them as to not alarm the people of the Denorid system."

"Was the decision unanimous?" Haln asked.

Leia took a breath. There was no sense in lying. "No it was not. Senators Trent and Belsiphvin were in disagreement to the decision initially."

"So you stood alone on this?"

"Admiral Antilles was also present and he agreed with the plan."

Haln took his seat. Leia knew what he had done. It was his job to remain calm. He had neatly opened the door for his younger associates to start yelling. The yelling didn't come right away. Senator Jaillim, a supporter of Leia spoke next. "Senator Trent, why were you opposed to the plan?"

The old man cleared his throat before answering. "I thought that because the asteroids presented no immediate danger that they did not require our attention, and we should address the senate with the decision before proceeding further."

"And you, Senator Belsiphvin?"

"When the Denorians first contacted us, they asked that we 'fix' their sky by putting the stars back in their rightful places. I decided the nature of this request was not in keeping with the urgency that usually dominates the senate meetings and should be handled in committee. We decided we would refuse this offer with the idea that we didn't want to lie to the people of the Denorid system. Since we decided to not offer our assistance, the harmless asteroids were none of our concern. If we wanted to change our strategy and begin to lend substantial aid to the people, then this was now something that should be brought in front of the entire council and not just dealt with in committee."

Leia looked stunned. She had not heard that argument before. It was obvious Belsiphvin had been doing some thinking on the matter and was no longer on Leia's side. Leia looked out into the assembly to see who the next speaker would be and took a deep breath when Captain Quenthor stood up. The former Imperial officer insisted on retaining his military tittle. "I agree with you, but you allowed President Organa-Solo to make the decision herself, instead of bringing it in front of us?"

"We had no time," Leia said, trying to intercept the senator's comments that were meant for her but aimed at someone else.

"I beg to differ. You had plenty of time. These asteroids posed no threat to the people. As I can see it, there was no need for immediate action. I believe you over estimated the situation."

"But there is need for concern," Leia said urgently. "Those asteroids are now very harmful and need to be stopped."

"I understand that," Quenthor replied, "but your initial response is doing nothing to stop that, is it? It has only needlessly pulled ships away from their patrol. Regardless of whether or not the asteroids changed course, the ships served no purpose. They were meant to destroy harmless asteroids, and now they will simply arrive late. You seem to forget that we are no longer at war with anyone, and you can't just deploy our fleet whenever you want."

Leia could feel her loosing control of this session quickly and was relieved to see another one of her supporters, a young female senator. Senator Kellie was incredibly bright and Leia suspected she knew exactly what her comment was going to be related to. "No one has asked how or why these asteroids suddenly changed course. Does anyone know?"

Ransig found that he had to leave the safety of the shadows he had been hiding in. "We don't really have any explanation. The only plausible reason for the explosions is an artificial device."

"Are you trying to say this was done on purpose?!" Leia looked toward the speaker and winced when she saw that another one of the former Imperials had been allowed to speak.

"Have you considered gronst?" Kellie asked.

Leia had no idea what the young senator had asked but she could see a small light go on in Ransig's head. The science officer looked at Leia with sincere apology on his face. Leia's ignorance of the situation showed profoundly on her face, and Ransig decided to explain. "Gonst is a gaseous substance that is not all that uncommon in the Danzig system. The gas is for the most part inert, but when it undergoes rapid temperature changes, it becomes explosive. If the asteroids contained pockets of gonst then it is possible that when they faced the sun of the Denorid system, the gas heated up, and when they rotated away from the sun they cooled down. As the asteroids neared the sun, the temperature difference between hot and cold became so great that as they cooled, the gas exploded."

Senator Haln found himself able to speak again, and Leia began wondering who was controlling the switchboard. "What we have here are three distinct examples of poor decision making. The first is the idea that the Dazing system was harmless and the Denorians did not need our protection. The second is that the initially harmless asteroids needed our attention. The third is that the asteroids were harmless at all. Each one of these misconceptions would have been handled correctly if they had been brought to the attention of the senate instead of handled individually. I think that this situation provides serious question as to President Organ-Solo's leadership ability."

The following commotion was so loud and fierce it took several minutes to finally regain some semblance of order. During the next twenty minutes only former Imperials and other anti-Leia senators spoke. Each of them recounted as many instances as they could think of to discredit Leia and her abilities as a leader. They went so far as to call accuse her of treason and demand the immediate removal of her as chief of state. Leia actually thought she was going to be very unofficially voted out before one of her supporters found his way into the circus.

"Fellow senators I must remind you that this is not the topic of discussion. You all have your complaints about the president, and you are entitled to them. I also admit this situation was handled poorly, but we are here to determine the proper course of action concerning the Denorid system. The chief of state can not be deposed by a majority vote at just any time. If you looked at your handbook you will see that an investigation must take place and formal charges be brought against the offending leader. But that is for another time."

The assembly seemed to calm somewhat, but Leia could tell there would definitely be an investigation. Leia thought it might be best to resign right now, but she felt an obligation to the people of the Denorid system and she couldn't step out now. But she had no intention of letting formal charges be brought against her.

The rest of the session went relatively smooth and it was decided to send a large group of medical and industrial aid to the planets of the Denorid system. Leia still hadn't told anyone about Wedge and Anakin's mission. With any luck they had only just left within the hour, though she knew she wouldn't be able to keep that a secret for long.

***

Leia was tired and wasn't looking forward to the meetings she was going to have to attend that afternoon. Just a quick stop back at the apartment, she thought. Han will have watched it on the holo-vid and is sure to have some encouraging words. Leia opened the door to her residence and did indeed see Han sitting in a chair waiting for her, but there were also two men she didn't recognize standing beside him patiently.

"I'm sorry," she said to her unknown visitors, "I have meetings all afternoon. I am only stopping here for a bite to eat and am heading right back out. If you need to talk we can set up a meeting tomorrow afternoon sometime."

Leia knew something was up as she saw her husband shaking his head slowly. The gesture was familiar and Leia knew that Han had already probably tried repeated methods of getting rid of the men and failed. "You will cancel your meeting this afternoon. After that session, I'm sure everyone will understand. What we have to say takes precedence over anything else."

Leia took serious pause before replying. They had just admitted to watching her crucifixion only half an hour ago, so they both knew what kind of situation she was in and how important that situation was. If they still thought their information was more important, then it might be. The only thing that made her think twice about listening to what they had to say was that she was sure it was more bad news. "Okay. Give me a minute or two to cancel my meetings, and I'll be right with you."

"Don't bother," Han said from his chair, "they already took the liberty."

Han's comment reminded the two visitors of his presence and one of them turned to regard him. "Thank-you for allowing us to wait in you home, but you must go now while we talk to your wife."

Leia could see the incredible reluctance on Han's face as he slowly pried himself from his chair. "Wait," Leia said suddenly, "what is the nature of your information?"

"Financial."

"Han stays." Both of her visitors looked like they were going to protest but Leia raised a hand immediately. She was constantly being shown that her education on Alderaan had been lacking in some areas of government leadership and the financial realm was definitely one of them. "Han knows everything I know, and there is no secret I keep from him. Either he stays and hears it now, or I tell him later."

Both men shrugged as if they really didn't care and began to expound upon their information. "First of all I am Kerik and this is Drexin. We are the two members of the Republic that deal with its financial status, or, as you're about to see, the lack of such status." Drexin opened a briefcase that was sitting on the floor next to him and handed a small stack of papers to Leia, who had taken a seat on a couch next to her husband. "These are the last fifty transactions the official Republic account has processed."

Leia took the papers and began scanning them, looking for something familiar. Han leaned over her shoulder and managed to make a little more sense of the figures and statements than his wife could. "Is this a joke?" Han asked. "It says here that the Republic has a standing balance of 55,763 credits. I have more than that stored under my mattress."

"I'm afraid that those documents are not meant to be humorous in the slightest."

"But this just can't be possible," Han insisted. "Where's the purchase of the furniture we just bought?"

"That furniture was not bought by the Republic. The palace purchased it. The Palace Development Committee is separate from the official Republic account."

"What about all the ships that are being refitted right now on the moon? Where are all those parts coming from?"

"The Coruscant Naval Yards are separate from the official Republic account."

"What is the official Republic account?" Leia asked.

"Exactly what you see in front of you. The account consists of 55,763 credits."

"What is it possibly useful for?" Han asked as he leafed through the records of the transactions. "All I see here a small payments for worthless items. Here," Han said as he separated one sheet from the stack. "Seventeen hundred credits for a new radio transmitter. Two hundred credits for five compressed fuel cells. Where are the income statements?"

The two men stopped looking at Leia when they spoke, realizing that despite their long wait, the person they were going to end up addressing had been waiting with them. "The official Republic account has not had one income statement in its twenty-six year existence. It is what you might call a non-profit organization."

"It is more like what I would call a non-organization organization. What in the galaxy is it for?"

"It is the official Republic account."

"Are you trying to tell me that this huge government that spans over a hundred systems, close to two hundred planets, and quadrillions of citizens doesn't have enough money to buy an X-wing? This is a rich government. Maybe not as wealthy as the old Empire was, but it is still growing. And we have all this without-" Han stopped what he was going to say, realizing that what these men might be saying was true.

"Without what?" Leia asked.

"Taxation," Drexin and Kerik said together. Drexin continued alone. "It is a strong symbol, built on the foundation of unity between all of those systems, planets, and people you mentioned earlier, but I'm afraid the actual centralized government is very small. What we live in is the only type of establishment of its kind ever created in history. Never before has a true republic, a rule by the people, been created. Always before it has been found necessary to create a representative republic where the people elect leaders to rule for them. These rulers would then set up a centralized government that controlled the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government. They made the laws and the people would follow them."

"But that is what we have here," Leia said.

"I'm afraid not. The Republic does not rule over each of the quadrillion citizens in its domain; that would be foolish. There are so many different races and cultures that exist that any ruling you make would never be able apply to all of the people without drastic conflicts. Instead the Republic rules over the people by viewing each of the planets as a single entity. And since you have one senator for each of the planets, your entire ruling populace is present at all times. Because of this, there is no need to support a centralized government."

"But where does all the money come from?" Han asked, not really caring for the political make-up of the Republic.

"Everything is privatized. When the Empire ruled here on Coruscant, they had their fingers reaching into everything that went on. There wasn't one business or enterprise that existed on this city world that didn't answer to the Empire."

"When we arrived," Leia jumped in, beginning to see what they were saying, "we liberated them from the Empire's hold, and everyone privatized everything, anxious to continue business before this new government could get a finger hold. Han," she said turning to her husband, "you visited Coruscant many times while the Empire still held it."

"Everything was government owned," he agreed. "When you wanted to ride on the mono-rail, you had to ride on the Imperial Mono-rail. When you wanted to by a pair of boots, half of what you spent went directly into the Emperor's personal account."

"It's not like that now," Leia said. "Everyone owns their own business and they keep everything they make." She turned back to Drexin and Kerik. "That's the way we wanted it. Sure, when we took over Coruscant we were still too busy fighting the Empire to worry about taking hold of the Empire's financial establishments, but we had no intention to anyway."

"But that isn't the only way the Empire made money," Kerik said. "They had stiff taxation on every world that they ruled. The Republic's main selling point was that it had no taxation from its members."

"We had to sound more appealing than the Empire," Leia said. "We were in the middle of a war, and we were asking them to help, if we demanded taxes of them, we would have been just as oppressive as the people from whom we were trying to liberate them."

"This all well and good," Han said, "but it doesn't answer my original question. Where does all the money for ships and buildings and furniture come from?"

"One of the first things we realized," Drexin explained, "was that if we had no means of income, we could not afford to have any expenses. The military was the first and biggest concern but it took care of itself. Almost every world we stole from the Empire had a small military of their own to keep their space safe from pirates, smugglers, and other ambitious worlds. The Empire only protected those worlds that it felt were valuable while leaving the other worlds to fend for themselves. Now the Republic protects everyone equally, and each of the worlds found they no longer needed an army of their own, instead they sent their sons and daughters to serve in the Republic's main army. This means that each of the officers is supported financially by their home planet. It's the same way with all the ships and supplies. Since each planet no longer needs to support their own navy, what they would have spent on their own ships, they now spend on one large collective navy. The result is that the combined efforts of all the worlds has produced a much stronger and more unified military than could have ever been produced by one government."

"Everything else simply fell into place," Kerik continued. "If it was found the government needed something else, then one of the worlds would take the initiative and the others would join in and support it. There is no centralized government that controls anything."

Leia and Han both began to nod their heads, understanding what the two men were saying. Han was the first to realize the problem with this set up. "So when the Republic co-signs a loan to a war impoverished planet as the defaulter, where does the Republic get the credit statements to back up the transaction."

"We make them up."

"What?!" Leia shouted. "You make them up! You can't lie about financial records. Whose idea was that?"

"Originally? Mon Mothma's. She was the first leader of the Republic, and she saw that although we had a lot of money after we seized the funds left behind by the Emperor, we had no income and therefore, no means of giving good credit to back anyone else. She had to make a choice. She knew that in order to expand we were going to have to help all of the formerly occupied worlds rebuild. The only way we could do this was to establish a good credit base so banks would be willing to give the worlds support with us as the default. There was only two ways to establish this credit: create taxation or lie about it. Since we didn't have any involvement in the workings of the businesses that had restarted independently on Coruscant, we would either have to create a huge tax on the worlds to make up for it, or take the businesses away from the people of Coruscant by force. Lying about it was much preferred."

"I know it sounds bad," Drexin said, "but in reality it doesn't hurt anyone. What you don't know can't hurt you. Every moneylender believes us to be very financially secure and everyone we have backed so far has never defaulted. If you asked someone to walk across a fifteen-centimeter stripe down the center of a bridge, any sober person would be able to do it, no problem. Then if you flipped a switch and revealed that the entire bridge, except for that fifteen-centimeter strip had been an illusion and asked them to do it again, they wouldn't be able to. Why? Absolutely nothing has changed. They walked across the narrow strip before with nothing to catch them if they fell; why is it so different now that they know? It just is."

"But I still don't understand what difference it makes?" Leia asked. "If we have the wealth of the combination of hundreds of different worlds, why do we have to lie about something that doesn't exist. Why can't we just present the wealth of all those planets as the official Republic account? Surely that would be larger and more greatly respected than anything you could make up."

"Two reasons," Han replied, before either of the visitors could speak. "The money that belongs to the worlds is their own, and they will only spend it on what can help them. I'm sure that there is only one or two of the worlds that would willingly bail out another when the action wouldn't help them in the slightest. The other problem is that there is no official Republic account. I say that because there really is no Republic to have an account."

Drexin nodded, glad that Han was finally beginning to understand what the situation was. "He's right. There is no government. All you have is the ruling pubic which makes its own rules. Since each of the planets rules themselves, there is no higher power to answer to. The only reason that they work together is because they realize that the combination is greater than the sum of its parts."

"There is no dictator or executive branch to keep them together," Kerik continued. "There is no organization which can claim the wealth of the combined worlds other than the individual worlds themselves. One could call you," he said pointing at Leia, "the centralized government, but in actually you are the senator from Alderaan. Even if you were the centralized government," he gestured to the papers she and Han held, "there is all your money."

"Can't you find a way to create an income?"

Drexin shook his head. "What can we do? The only kind of income that would be helpful is a large profit endeavor. Since everyone thinks that we have a lot of money, no one would see the need to help us get it started. With only fifty-five thousand credits, there isn't much we can do to get it started other than reveal to everyone our situation, and then we are back to flipping the switch to remove the bridge."

"You said that you seized the funds of the Emperor," Han said. "Don't you still have them?"

"I'm afraid you are looking at everything we have left. The money disappeared very quickly in the early days of the Republic."

Leia nodded slowly, realizing that if she had been in Mon Mothma's position, she would have decided to lie also. "So why are you telling me now? Now that I know there is no bridge to catch me when I trip, aren't you scared it's going to affect my judgment next time I have to cross a canyon?"

"The fire this morning apparently was not an accident. We think the data chips containing a history of the official Republic account transactions were stolen."

Leia gasped sharply. "This means I have to tell the general assembly about the financial status, don't I? I might as well resign now. It'll save time."

"Your husband tells us that your children are chasing the suspected thief. If he can be apprehended before he has a chance to use the records he's stolen, then everything should be okay."

Leia closed her eyes and hoped that Jaina and Jacen would succeed in what ever they were doing - for her sake if not the Republic's.

Chapter 10 "Enlisting Volunteers"

Eran checked his sensors again, still searching for somewhere he could leave hyperspace safely. His lead had shrunk dramatically since he had left Coruscant and while he was safe in hyperspace, he knew that if the ship trailing him ever got in front of him, it could very easily rip him out of hyperspace with an interdiction field. Eran had no idea how big the ship that followed him was. For all he knew it could be the largest ship in the Republic. He had no idea how successful Jacen could have been in convincing his superiors of Eran's guilt. As it was, the Scavenger was far to small to carry an interdiction device, but Eran didn't know that.

What Eran needed to do was to find a spot where he could leave hyperspace, change course and reenter hyperspace. He had a few problems. He knew the ship that followed him had a much better hyperspace computer than he had; therefore, their ship would be able to calculated the jump faster than his could, and all the maneuver would achieve would be to lessen the distance between them. Also, the distance between them was so close now that he wasn't sure that he could rejump before his pursuers caught up with him.

Right now he was approaching the edge of a bi-solar system. His route brought him near one of the suns, but kept a safe distance. If his route had been a little closer, the sun's radiation could have cloaked him for a while, allowing him to change direction without detection. As it was, his ship's engine wasn't strong enough to allow the shorter route. Wait, his pursuer's ship's engine was surely strong enough. In fact they would probably pass right next to the huge nuclear sphere.

Eran quickly changed his destination by entering the coordinates that corresponded to the point on his path closest to the sun. Thirty seconds later he dropped out hyperspace, and the huge sun hung menacingly to the right of his ship. He ignored it as much as possible, feeling its heat through the glassine forward view. He realized he hadn't picked up an alternate location and quickly scanned his charts for the nearest populated planet. He punched the planet into his nav computer, and forty-five seconds later his ship swung left and downward, stretching out reality and snapping into lightspeed.

***

Jacen and Jaina watched as their sensors slowly filled with static until the small blip they had been chasing for the past fifteen hours was nearly invisible. Their ship wavered slightly as they neared the large gravity well. Jacen looked at his sister, knowing that she was responsible for programming the computer. "You sure know how to cut it close, don't you?"

"You want to catch him, don't you?" Jaina replied rather indignantly. "Though, I really don't know what for." Jacen refused to reply but instead stared at the sensors as they clouded over from the radiation. He had spent the whole trip so far arguing with his sister and didn't want to continue the pointless exercise. "What are you going to do when you catch him? Kill him?"

"I just want to know what he knows. He is taking orders from the Imperials, and I want him to tell us what they're up to."

"You really haven't thought this through, have you? If he is guilty then he will deny any of your accusations. If he is innocent he will do like-wise."

"I can tell if he's lying."

The conversation ceased as the ship reached the peak of its reaction to the solar interference. Due to the Doppler effect, the interference ended much quicker than it had begun and the sensors cleared almost immediately after they passed the sun. "Where'd he go?!" Jacen screamed as they sensors cleared. The blip had disappeared.

"He wasn't traveling close enough to the sun to get sucked in," Jaina said, her mind racing. She wanted to catch up to Eran almost as much as her brother, only for entirely different reasons. She quickly swung the sensors back toward the sun and saw a ship streaking away from the sun on a perpendicular course to the one they were on now. "Clever." Jaina took control of the ship, bringing them suddenly out of hyperspace. She calculated the ship's destination quickly and then programmed an intercept course.

"Where's he going?"

"It looks like Aldertain," Jaina responded. "It's a heavily populated world that is almost entirely one large rest stop for hyperspace travelers. It is a swarm of different races and cultures. The perfect place to disappear."

Jacen stemmed any comment as their ship jumped into pursuit.

***

The constant, low thrumming of the engines greeted Luke as he slowly opened his eyes. The Jedi wasn't exactly what most people would consider tall, but the bed he had just slept in wasn't exactly what most people would consider long. As the master stretched his limbs he wondered if Mara hadn't picked up the ship from one of Yoda's relatives. A few cramps grabbed a hold of his muscles, and he winced, as he was too groggy to fight off the pain with the Force. He managed to make it through the experience, keeping most of his motor skills and hobbled over to his still unpacked suitcase. He pulled out one of his fashionable robes and draped it over his sleeping attire.

Luke wandered out of his room, needing some sort of caffeine or stim drink before he even tried to remember who he was, where he was going, or why. Mara was a much better morning person and had a pot of stimsuline steaming away above a ring of small blue flames. Luke walked into the galley, grabbed a mug, and poured himself a generous portion. A few seconds later, he burned his mouth wide-awake, and the rest of his body was soon to follow as the drink seared its way to his stomach.

"Are you okay?" Mara asked, keeping her sarcastic comments locked firmly behind a fake, concerned look. She wondered if this was the way the most powerful man in the universe always started his days.

Luke nodded toward her as he slurped down some more of his cup, a little more carefully this time. "I'll be fine, yourself?"

"I was up an hour ago," Mara said, double-checking her appearance to see if the comment had a meaning behind it or if this was Luke's attempt at small talk. "Are you always like this in the morning?"

Luke was just about back to what people would normally call consciousness. His hair was unkempt even by his usually ruffled standards. His face sported stubble that was so uncommon on the Jedi Master's face that Mara tried to convince herself it was dirt. And his robe was only half-heartedly tied around his waist, exposing chest hair that looked like it desperately wanted to turn gray. "This is just a little experiment I'm performing."

"Alcoholism?"

Luke was awake enough to give that comment a smirk. "No, I like to call it naturalism. I don't know if you know what I've been through recently, but I had thought I had the Force removed from me. It turned out the For-" Luke stopped remembering what Mara had said about talking about the Force. "Well I just decided to see what living without it was like for a while."

"You mean you are stepping off your pedestal to see how the rest of us little peons live?"

"Yea, something like that," Luke replied as he got up and went in search of some solid food.

"That would explain the limp," Mara said under her breath, though loud enough for Luke to hear. "You know even us mortals can spend an hour or two in bacta treatment."

"There are no scars," Luke said, finding a package of instant fimps. He put some water on the heating pad and lit the flames underneath.

Mara felt that the conversation, or lack thereof, was suffering slightly. "If you promise not to preach at me, you can say the "F" word."

"The limp will go away in about a week or two, but while it's with me it reminds me of how fragile life really is. We Jedi are just a focusing tool for the power of the Force, but that doesn't mean that we are anymore indestructible than anyone else. I need to remember that." The water came to a boil quickly, and Luke poured the liquid over the fimps. He stirred the mixture into a thin paste and went back to the table.

The two of them just sat there, not really knowing what to talk about. They both had a lot to ask each other, but nothing really to say.

"Have you ev-"

"How do yo-"

They both said at once. Mara was a little less eager to ask her question and motioned that Luke could go ahead. "How do you manage to stay content in this life style? I don't mean to belittle your profession, because I know how important trade is to the survival of the Republic, but it doesn't fit my image of you."

"And what exactly is your image of me?" Mara asked, truly intrigued.

"You grew up as a trained assassin for the Emperor. You then worked for Kardde during a time when what you're doing now was called smuggling, and the Republic was eager to end it. To me that screams of someone who has always lived on the edge and wouldn't be happy unless they knew that there was excitement around each corner."

"You think I'm a thrill seeker? That's funny because I've always had the feeling that 'thrills' had a certain prerogative to seek me. I've never consciously looked for danger, but unlike others, I don't go around it when I confront it. You're right in a way. This job lacks the danger that has been a trademark of my previous employments, but that's why I drop by Coruscant every now and then. You guys always seem to stir up enough excitement to last me a while."

"What can I say? It runs in the family." Luke had finally stirred his hot cereal into a more moderate temperature range and took a spoonful. "What was it that you wanted to ask?"

"Oh, it was nothing."

***

The woman walked into the head office building of the Varion Construction Yards and seemed to be unaffected by the various displays of antiquity that were showcased around her. Usually people were quite surprised when they first entered the building as they came face to face with two very large turret guns. The old automatic firing machines were placed in flanking positions on either side of the entrance with ammunition strands dangling from their barrels. They were both so out of date that most mechanics refused to even admit they had ever had a date.

Next the visitor walked over a highly polished, transparent floor witch served as a viewing window for an enormous display case beneath. There were countless models of the evolution of the space craft from the most humble of flying apparatuses that many believed to be myth, to the first hyperspace ship that was one percent cockpit and ninety-nine percent engine. All the models were done in such intricate detail that visitors often spent many minutes just standing over the display looking downward.

If neither of the previous displays had managed to impress, the jet hanging from the ceiling always managed to succeed. The plane, that any one of the yard workers would promise you, could actually fly. The triangular plane was limited to atmospheric travel but was the top of that particular evolutionary grouping. Two large rocket thrusters in the back powered it, with deadly missile packs strapped under each wing.

Admiral Sanson walked past these items with her eyes unwavering, neither side to side at the guns, down at the models, or up at the jet, but straight ahead at the front desk secretary. "How may I help you Miss?"

Sanson was never one for pleasantries. She could play the game as well as anyone, but it was just that - a game. "I'm here to talk with President Loyran."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"I believe that my husband has made one for me."

She looked down at her books for about half a second. "I don't see any appointments listed here. What is you name?"

"Admiral Jill Sanson."

The secretary was not impressed with the tittle. They had a lot of would be military leaders come into their ship yards demanding this and that, but they were all just blow hards. "I'm sorry I still don't see a listing for you. What did you say your husband's name was?"

"President Alexander Snotzenexer of the Varion Imperial Bank. Perhaps you've heard of him."

The secretary was taken aback slightly, not because she in any way believed this "admiral" was the wife of the president, but because of the boldness of her lie. She couldn't have picked a more important voucher unless she had named President Loyran himself. "Do you have an identity card with you?" This was always the stumbling block. The secretary had heard the lines such as "Oh, I left it in my transport. Just let me in and I'll get it for you later." or "I have one, but it is bent and your scanner won't read it."

Sanson used neither of those excuses, but instead produce the requested form of ID. The secretary hesitated slowly as the card was offered to her, waiting for the trick to come any time. After waiting to the point of embarrassment and beyond, the flustered woman took the card. She scanned it slowly, giving the machine ample time to detect any forgery. The machine triple-beeped an affirmative ID check and named Sanson as the wife of Snotzenexer, part owner of the Varion Construction Yards. The secretary wasn't convinced still, knowing that it was possible to steal such a card, though the picture of the admiral matched the reality standing in front of her.

"Could you please take a retina scan?"

Sanson sighed audibly though she had suspected she would have to prove her identity some other way. She bent over toward the hand held device and experienced the odd sensation of the laser scanning across her pupil. The second triple beep left no doubt as to the identity, and thus the importance of this unexpected visitor. In reality they both knew Snotzenexer had made no appointment, but the bank president was on a list of about five people who needed none. The list had just increased to six.

"I'm sorry admiral, you weren't expected." Sanson shrugged off the apology, making it clear that she didn't wish to engage in idle conversation but wanted to meet with President Loyran. "If you go down that hallway to the second turbo lift on your right, someone will take you to his office. I will make sure he knows who you are so you won't have to be questioned."

"Thank-you," Sanson said as she walked away. As soon as she was out of sight, the secretary quickly called as many people as she could think of to make sure the quick-tempered admiral's path would be as smooth as possible.

An attendant whisked Sanson up to the top floor of the building and showed her where the president's office was. The door to the office opened before the admiral got there and the president was all smiles as he welcomed her on this "most unexpected visit" and "they were honored by her presence."

Sanson begrudged the president a smile as she shook his hand and took a seat in front of his desk. She even went so far as to accept the drink offered her, though she made no attempt to drink it. "If you don't mind my asking, what are you the admiral of?"

Sanson realized that small talk was not going to be avoided, but she did plan to minimize it. "I was a member of the Imperial Navy."

Loyran knew a few things about the Empire. He knew about the crushing defeat in the Danzig system and that was probably the reason for the past tense "was" in the admiral's last statement. He also knew that women were not prominent members of the old Empire. "I hope you're not here to try and take over my operation?" the president chuckled.

Sanson forced a smile to keep her cover. If you only knew, she thought. "No, not today. What I need is some repair work done on some ships of mine."

"What kind of ships?"

"I have a fleet of about thirty Imperial class Star Destroyers hiding in you asteroid belt. All of them have crippled shields and have not been properly maintained for some time."

Loyran knew about the ships in the belt. He'd known about them from the hour they had entered the Varion system. But he also recognized their significance and he didn't want to make any enemies, so he had let their presence seem to go unnoticed. "You said 'hiding in the asteroid belt.' You aren't planning to continue your fight against the Republic, are you?"

That's none of your business, she wanted to bite back, but Snotzenexer had asked her to keep her calm. "You'll also notice that I said 'was in the Imperial Navy.' The war with the Republic has been over for a long time. The mistakes by my former colleagues in the Danzig system only show that. I have been cut off from the Empire for a long time now."

"Then why repair the ships?" the president asked, knowing he was getting some top grade information.

Sanson didn't mind giving out the info, knowing that most of it was just a lie anyway. "You know about my husband's predictions, I'm sure. You have your connections with the local governments."

"He thinks the Republic is going to collapse on itself, re-emerging as a much improved version of the old Empire."

"He also thinks that if the Varion system gets a hand in the game, you can be a major player in the galaxy. If the Varion system joins the Republic, you will need to have more of a presence than just a senator. With my fleet the Varion system will be able to bolster a slightly suffering Republic fleet and gain not only respect but power."

The president soaked it up like a Garnian bread lizard in a pond. He also saw an opportunity to make friends with Snotzenexer, and all three of the planetary governments, not to mention improve the Varion position in the upcoming galactic events. "I will of course pay you handsomely for your repairs-"

"I doubt that will be necessary," the president held up his hand to keep any further comments at bay. Sanson shrugged, outwardly appearing to dislike the charity, but inwardly laughed at the president knowing there was no way he would ever have seen any of her credits. "We have a very large facility. I think I can arrange the use of eight refitting stations for you. Each should be plenty large to accommodate one of your Star Destroyers."

Sanson nodded her thanks and rose from the chair, letting the president know that that was all she had wanted. "I hope you can find your way back."

"I think I'll manage."

***

"What do you want buddy?"

"I need your help Lando," Han said to the image of his long time friend.

"What is it this time? You get yourself into a high stakes game and lose the Falcon or something?"

"I wish," Han said. The two words were spoken without any hint of humor and told Lando more than any pleading could have. There were few things that ranked as high as "worse than losing the Falcon."

"Is it the Imperials again?" Lando asked, though he didn't believe it. He was pretty sure they had seen the last of them for a while, and besides, Han hardly needed Lando's help when the Republic had the largest fleet known in existence.

"It's hard to tell right now, it might be, but that is only a superficial problem. The real problem can't be discussed over this line."

"It's secure," Lando insisted.

"I know, but not secure enough. Listen what I have to tell you could tear the Republic apart quicker than a fool's array can change to bust in a game of random sabaac."

"That's quick," Lando said, trying to add some humor to this conversation. Han didn't respond. "Can you at least tell me what kind of information it is and how you know that I'll be of any help at all?"

"It has to do with financial matters. Financial matters that are far too complex for a simple smuggler to figure out. Financial matters that are far too classified to go to anyone outside of our circle. I thought that you might to be able to see a safe way out of this mess."

Lando loosened up a little, hearing some of the old Han talking again. "Well you know that I'm working on this asteroid out here to try and provide your Republic with industrial strength crystals, but I guess my crew can survive for a while with out me, if it's that important that I come and visit you."

"Believe me, if you want to keep the Republic as a buyer, you might want to get your butt over here."

"Just like old times," Lando said under his breath. "I'll leave tonight, okay? That should get me to Coruscant in a couple days."

"I'll be waiting."

***

Admiral Snotzenexer read the list of the Republic's transactions with an ever-growing smile spreading over his face. He had originally decided to release these records to some of the local news networks under an anonymous name, but the Republic was worse off than he had thought, and no one would ever believe the records. This of course meant that he would have to change his strategy slightly, but that was okay.

"President Snotzenexer," the admiral's secretary said over the speaker on his desk, "You have some very important visitors who wish to see you."

"Who are they, Alicsia?"

"They are the governors from the three planetary governments, sir," she said rather calmly, introducing the three most powerful men in the system.

"Could you please show them up personally?"

"As you wish."

Governors Quanip, Buscar, and Taimmen, from Knilerhn, Varia, and Iom respectively had no doubt seen the broadcast of the past few senate meetings from Coruscant after Snotzenexer's prediction, and they wanted to now act upon that prediction. The admiral was pretty sure as to what they were going to ask him, but he wasn't positive.

Alicsia, Snotzenexer's pretty, young secretary (the admiral couldn't wait to introduce her to his wife) led the three important men into the office, and all three thanked the woman as she left the men to their meeting. The office usually had two chairs in front of the president's large desk, but Snotzenexer had had another one brought up here expecting the meeting to happen, although he had honestly expected it to come yesterday. The men took their seat and Snotzenexer made himself the adequate host, supplying each of the governors with the beverage of their choice.

Snotzenexer finally seated himself behind his desk, allowing the meeting to start. "I assume that you have seen recordings of the Republic senate."

"We have," Taimmen spoke. Snotzenexer eyed the big man, remembering the hostility he had shown on their last meeting. If the admiral had judged his character right, he would now see Snotzenexer as a means to expand his power to encompass several systems. Taimmen was the governor of Iom, and while Vario lent the system its name, Iom was the head of the three planets. If the Varion system should join the Republic and achieve a position of power, then he stood to gain the most. "We also agree with your assessment that the current president is on her way out, but we are not so sure that anything will really change. In our eyes, we just see Organa-Solo being replaced by someone else and the Republic continuing as it already is."

Snotzenexer didn't believe that was what the three politically inclined governors had really gleaned from the senate meetings, but he also saw that they wanted him to tell them what he thought before they revealed their own hand. "Can't you see that it's not just Organa-Solo that's on the way out," he said acting like he really believed what Taimmen had said, "but the whole idea of one president presiding over the whole assembly. The position has too much power associated in it. They have tried to create a pure Republic, a rule by the people, but even with Organa-Solo at the helm, a non-power hungry person by nature, the president holds too much power. I agree that they will probably appoint a intermediate president while they try to reinvent the system. But the reinvention is going to look to the powerful systems for advice and support. They will probably create a ruling council of about six to eight people to preside over the main assembly to try and prevent the ability of one person to usurp the power. I sincerely hope that you don't lose your opportunity to ge-"

Governor Buscar raised his hand and chuckled slightly. Snotzenexer hoped that he had not over done the act. "Don't worry, we were just sort of testing you. I hope you don't mind, but we needed to know if you were going to stick to your earlier prediction and not change your mind because we had disagreed with you. We have been watching you," the man said, glancing at his associates, "and we really respect all of your decisions so far. You have been president of this bank for only a week, but have already made a name for yourself and in the process saved a small business that provided a lot of good jobs to our people, improved the bank's image to the surrounding systems, and in return, the entire system's image as been strengthened."

Snotzenexer felt very insulted by all this. They were trying to make him feel like a student that was receiving the watchful teacher's praise. At the least, the roles should be reversed. "What we really like," Governor Quanip added, "is your ability to accurately read a situation, see exactly what is going to happen, and not be afraid to act upon it." Snotzenexer nearly laughed out loud. It wasn't that hard to predict what was going to happen in a book if you were the one writing it. "We would like to employ your services as a representative for this system."

Taimmen cleared his throat, and Snotzenexer thought it only appropriate that he should be the one to tell him. "We have unanimously decided to heed your advice and join the Republic. We have also decided that you would be the best one to initially represent us in the senate."

"We want to get into the ruling party quickly," Buscar said, "so we don't want you to sit on your hands. You will best be able to analyze what is going on if you are directly involved with the proceedings. When the time is right, we want you to report back to us as to which one of us would be the best one to fill a spot on the ruling council. We also understand that you have received a lot of criticism in the past for some of your moves that were misunderstood by the uneducated as stupid, but turned out to be quite brilliant and almost obvious. For this reason we don't want you to report to anyone but us as to what you think is going on and the best way that we can react to it."

Snotzenexer sat quietly behind his desk. He had no intention of declining. He already had is bag packed, so to speak. "You know that I'm the head of the largest bank in the entire sector, and it's not a job you can just walk away from."

"We aren't asking you to quit your job as president," Quanip said. "We will need a strong minded person like you to control the financial dealings of the sector after we have taken a seat on the ruling council. We are simply asking you to take a long vacation. We don't suspect that it will take any longer than a week or two for the investigation committee to bring their charges against Organa-Solo and then maybe another week to elect a replacement. We can't see the realignment of the authority structure taking longer than another month or two. All said, you only need to take off, at the most, half a year."

Snotzenexer nodded slowly, trying to let them think that he was thinking as to how to respond. "I can't leave right now. I have someone in mind who can take over in my absence, but I need at least three days to tie up some things before I can leave."

"Take your time. We haven't yet contacted the Republic to let them know that we intend to join. We'll give you four days if you need them."

"I do have one major concern."

"What's that?"

"I think it is important to keep my role as a senator private from the public in the Varion system. My effectiveness would be greatly diminished if I had to answer to the media for all of my actions. Like you said before, I have been criticized for many of my moves before but they have turned out for the best. I think the best way for me to approach this new appointment would be one of a low-key representative. You will of course have to notify the ruling assembly on Coruscant, but I don't think the general public needs to know yet. There has been little to no talk of joining the Republic in the system, and I think that the sudden appointment of myself, a controversial figure at best, to the initial senate position might not go over well."

The three governors looked at each other with blank stares. They hadn't considered this part of the issue, but everything Snotzenexer said made sense. "What do you suggest we do?" Buscar asked. "We can't exactly keep the public in the dark forever."

"You said that I should follow the proceedings and decide when it would be best to get one of you three on the ruling council. I think that would be a good time to tell the public what has happened. Telling the people of the Varion system that they were suddenly represented in the elite ruling council of the largest galactic government ever compiled would be better received than if they were told that you have simply sent a senator to the Republic and the Varion system is now simply going to join the government as a common member. After that, you can allow the events that are taking place now to come out. I'm sure the people will be able to view them in a pragmatic light."

The governors didn't have much to say to the well thought out plan other than to nod their heads in agreement. Snotzenexer rose from behind his desk and extended his hand toward his guests. "I'll do my best to try and improve our collective position in this quickly changing galaxy, though I can't promise miracles."

"We understand," Taimmen said as he shook the admiral's hand firmly.

You don't understand anything, Snotzenexer thought as the three men left. There will be no ruling council. It won't take longer than one month, and I will be in charge of the entire galaxy, with no one to answer to - Snotzenexer swallowed hard - except maybe my wife.

****

Chapter 11 "The Rain of the Gods"

Wedge looked out at the streaks the starlines made in his vision. He knew they were really only pin pricks of light, and it was the fact that the only way faster than light speed was possible was if you coexisted in several points at once. The result was you traveled from A to Z by hitting several letters at one, instead of taking them one at a time, and therefore, reducing the time of travel immensely. Still, to Wedge it felt like the ship was crawling. Leia had given him a time window, which he had missed. He had left over an hour after the time limit.

Wedge had still not sufficiently calmed down from his encounter with the techs that had been refitting the cruiser. Wedge had been told the ship would remain space worthy throughout its refitting, and could be ready at an hour's notice. It became quite evident to Wedge that he and the techs had different ideas of space worthiness. All of the shields and weapons had been taken off line so they could be upgraded. It wouldn't have been that bad if the power supplies had simply been replaced, but they had removed the actual laser cannons and shield generators. The B, X, and E-wings that were stored in the ship had almost all been removed to be upgraded, and only four ships, three X-wings and a B-wing, that hadn't seen recent combat had remained. Wedge had been mad at these changes, but that isn't what delayed his departure. They had also taken the hyperdrive engines off line. They were planning to install a fifth engine to the four that already existed and had to remove two entire engines to make room for the fifth. Wedge was actually surprised it had only taken them one hour to reinstall the two engines. They had been brought back on line only to find out there was no nav computer program available to operate them. The old program had to be trashed because it wouldn't handle the five engines as efficiently as a new one would.

The techs seemed to remember having an old version stored somewhere in the yard's computer and they uploaded it into the nav computer. The program proved its age when they tried to enter Anakin's coordinates. The computer specialist on hand spent five futile minutes trying to get the program to cooperate, but it had too many out of date safeties to break through. Wedge had been just about ready write off the Denorid system when Anakin had removed the "specialist" from his spot in front of the computer like he was an over-sized pillow and plopped himself down in front of the stubborn nav-com. Two minutes later they were streaking through hyperspace.

The ride was hardly uneventful. They were undermanned and simply keeping the ship in hyperspace took their entire effort. Wedge was still trying to think of what he could do when they reached the Denorid system. He had planned on blowing the rocks out of the sky, but he had no weapons. The only offense they had were the four fighters in the bay. They would be flown by the four best fighter pilots on board. The best three were easy to come by. He and Anakin could probably out fly anyone else in the fleet and Captain Tremon, the leader of the ship they were flying, was no slouch in a fighter either. After that the skill level dropped off dramatically. All of the fighter pilots had been given leave and none of them could be rounded up on short notice. Wedge knew that this ship normally carried the 185th and he would have felt a lot better if they had those three pilots on board. As it was, it turned out that one of the engine room technicians had logged about twenty hours in a simulator and five real life hours before he had decided to change occupations.

Wedge hadn't been able to contact Ransig before he had left because the science officer had been in the assembly hall, but what he gathered from Anakin's assessment of the situation they would be arriving in system about half an hour before the asteroids began to assault Denor and Trewist. One and a half hours before that, the planet of Forinad would be bombarded.

Wedge glanced at the ship's chrono that displayed the flight time remaining and cursed every tech at the ship yard as he saw that 1:32.45 remained. After his silent profanity, he changed gears dramatically and said a little prayer for the people of Forinad.

***

"Any idea what it could be?"

The junior observation officer stared at the radar screen and shook his head slowly. "I've never seen anything like, Urdgen. It looks like netting almost, but that can't be right, can it?"

Urdgen had his head sticking out of the hole in the floor, and he let go of his ladder with one hand and shrugged that shoulder. "They just told me, 'Ask Lawrence, he knows everything. He'll figure it out.' So I'm here asking you - what is it?"

Lawrence smirked at his companion's reply, but didn't speak right away. They were on a pretty small observation station in orbit around Forinad. Lawrence looked out the window in the direction where his sensors said something was coming. His eyes could only see inky blackness above the beautifully colored world below. Looking back at the sensor display, he began to grow frustrated. His people were a domestic race who enjoyed their little corner of the galaxy and were quite content to remain reclusive. Because of this, little effort was put forth into the fields of space technology, and Lawrence was feeling those shortcomings in a big way at the moment. His sensor array was little different from the ones used down on the planet to track the jet traffic. No one realized that in space everything was different. The radar system depended on a sonic echo for accurate results and there was no sound in the vacuum that surrounded the observation station, so the echo received, if at all, was very faint. Also, the array was set up for the confined area of an atmosphere and couldn't come close to coping with the infinite reaches of space.

Because of all these technological faults, the sensor array only detected the asteroids fifteen minutes before they would reach Forinad. Lawrence had no idea of his peril partly because the radar wasn't able to gauge their speed or direction accurately. Also, since there were so many of the space rocks, the array couldn't hope to pick out each individual one and simply represented them has a mesh.

"I think it's moving," the science officer said.

"Yea," Urdgen responded, "that's what the guys downstairs thought too."

"Could they tell where it's going?"

Urdgen shrugged his shoulder again. "I don't think so, they basically just want to write it off as a glitch in the system."

"It is shaped like a static cloud, but I was sure that I grounded the system last week."

Urdgen made an effort not to laugh. He wasn't technically inclined at all, but was only on the station as a cook and janitor of sorts. "How can you ground anything up here?" he asked. "Don't tell me you have a cable running back to planet."

"Yea, something like that," Lawrence, not wanting to explain it to his friend. "Regardless, it looks like I'm going to have to go out there and fix it again." Urdgen started go when Lawrence grabbed his descending arm. "While I'm out there, why don't you check with the planet to see if they see anything. They have telescopes down there and I tend to trust light waves a little more than what ever this piece of junk works on," he concluded as he slammed a fist half-heartedly against his sensor screen.

Lawrence enjoyed going outside. There was something about the weightlessness that gave him a rush. Every kid dreams of being able to fly, and when Lawrence was outside, all of those dreams seemed to come rushing back to him. He was out of the airlock five minutes after Urdgen had left. As he allowed his thrusters to propel him along the side of the station he did the last minute checks on his suit that he rarely even bothered with anymore. He had been in the vacuum of space so often that it had lost its scariness, and all of the safety precautions that his supervisors insisted upon seemed quite pointless. Still he checked his oxygen and saw that he had enough for over three hours, though he doubted he would be outside for any longer than half an hour.

The station was pretty small on the inside, only seven rooms. There were two bedrooms, which housed eight people, a galley, a social room, his observation room, and two other larger science rooms that he knew little about. All told, it was much more cramped than his house back on the surface, but on the outside, the station looked enormous. There were so many computers built into the station and so much pipe and electrical work that from the outside the structure appeared huge.

Lawrence worked his way along the countless handholds set in the outside of the station. It just so happened that his sensor array was located right next to the window into the social room. Lawrence took a quick look inside and saw Urdgen sitting in front of the communicator. There were two other science officers reclining on the couch playing a card game. Lawrence made a mental note to hurry up so he could get back inside and yell at those slackers. He approached the array and was careful not to touch the circuits remembering the charge he had gotten last time he had adjust the ground. It had shorted out his suit's motivators, and he had had to manually pull himself back into the station. Instead he checked the ground cable to make sure it was properly connected. He located the thick black cable when he heard a taping sound. No, he corrected himself, he felt the tapping sound - this was space.

Lawrence felt a quick cold shiver that always came to him when something unexpected happened and he was outside. He quickly calmed himself when he glanced down and saw that Urdgen was at the window. He looked like something was really bothering him, and Lawrence lowered himself so his face was level with the window. Lawrence wasn't too good at reading lips, and Urdgen wasn't exactly speaking slowly, so the space walker didn't quite catch that, yes, Urdgen had gotten hold of the observatory down on the surface, and no, it wasn't static, and it was almost right on top of them, and he had better-

Lawrence had not made out one word, but Urdgen had suddenly stopped talking and was looking past him. Lawrence turned his body and followed Urden's stare out into space. The chill returned to Lawrence's spine in full force. As the asteroids flew toward him, Lawrence found it very difficult to think. The rocks were traveling so fast that he couldn't keep his eyes on any one of them for long. One particular asteroid managed to release his mind from its frozen state as it was heading right toward the station. His reflexes saved his life, because if he would have paused to think about it longer, his space training would have never allowed him to launch himself away from the station as he did. His legs pushed as hard as he could and he found himself floating away from the safety of the station and into the middle of the asteroid storm. The particular asteroid that had awaken him barely nicked the edge of the station, but had enough momentum to put the station in a slow spin that would last for the rest of its existence.

Lawrence couldn't stand looking into the flying rocks. Something deep inside of him told him that if he was going to die, he didn't want to be able to see it coming. He used his thrusters to rotate his still floating body around and was just in time to see a second asteroid smash into the station. The rock was very small, only a couple hundred pounds, but it was going so fast that it treated the station as if it was made of wet paper. Lawrence watched as the asteroid pierced the heart of the structure that had been his home for the past three weeks and shredded it. The last conscious sight Lawrence saw before his body went into a shock-induced coma was Urdgen being sucked out into the vacuum. The cook's face was frozen in an oxygen searching expression, as his chest was crushed against the unforgiving pressure of a vacuum.

***

Snotzenexer wasn't the cold unfeeling monster that Leia would later think him to be. He didn't enjoy killing innocent people, but he understood what had to be done. He wasn't like former Imperial leaders who killed as many as possible, but only killed as many as was necessary to achieve his goals. He had planned the asteroid attack on Forinad carefully. He knew all about Jedi's' ability to calculate hyperspace jumps and he was aware that it might be possible for a ship or two to reach the Denorid system early; however, he was pretty sure that they would not be in time for Forinad. He also knew that no one could be blamed for Forinad since it was impossible to reach it in time. But, Snotzenexer also knew about the status of the ships being overhauled at the Coruscant Ship Yards and was pretty sure that if they arrived in time for the two other planet's bombardment, they would be pretty helpless to stop it. Since this is where the blame would be placed, it was more important to kill people on those planets than on Forinad. But that didn't mean he didn't plan on doing some damage when he had the chance.

Forinad consisted of five continents that existed almost exclusively in the Western Hemisphere. The two smallest and most heavily populated continents straddled the equator and existed almost solely in the temperate zones. In between these two continents was a large scattering of tropical islands where some of the best vacation spots in the system were located. West of these continents were two pretty desolate land masses that lay next to each other like a pair of spoons. In fact, when viewed from space, it was very evident that the planet of Forinad had originally existed as one continent until some huge geological event had torn it into five. On the east lay a huge continent that stretched nearly to each pole. Because all of the land existed on one side of the globe, there was one grand ocean that took up fully two fifths of the planet by itself. The weather patterns over the ocean dictated that all the precipitation drifted west onto the large eastern continent. The ocean was bordered by a very impressive mountain range that ran along the continent and remained snow capped all year round. The rivers that ran off the mountains as well as the large amount of precipitation that snuck through the mountain passes created a very lush jungle along the belt of the continent at the equator. Because the precipitation off the ocean went one way, the spooned continents were very dry with the northern and southern extremities tundra covered, and the central regions were dusted with dessert.

In the mountains, far from civilization, is where the Forinians placed their telescopes. In a society that relied heavily on the astronomers and astrologers, these outposts were very important and as advanced as their technology allowed them to be. The society was cut into for types of people: the political leaders, the religious leaders, the general public, and the scientists. The political leaders and general public absorbed what both of the other two groups said, but the scientists and religious leaders were always at each other's throats. There wasn't a more stark difference between the two than in these mountain installations, because both astronomers and astrologers shared the same view tube into the sky. And there couldn't possibly be a more controversial event than this meteor shower, being something that had two very different interpretations.

"We have to alert the public. It shouldn't even be a question."

"You will do no such thing! This is the wrath of the gods and you will not interfere."

Yern exhaled slowly, trying to mentally count to ten, but realized after the first few numbers that the rest of the population didn't have the time for him to count. "Listen," he said in a controlled tone, "if the gods are sending punishment, why are they sending it to us? We didn't do anything."

"That is right," Priest Vyrin replied, "we have done nothing to repair their homes and that is why we are being punished."

"There is nothing we could have done. The Republic wasn't lying when they said they couldn't do anything. Nothing can be done."

"You scientists are all the same. With you it is always impossible. You have been blessed with abundant recourses that you can't possibly explain with your pathetic minds, and yet you say with certainty that nothing can be done. How do you know that you have used the materials at your disposal to the best of their ability? You have wasted what has been given to you. I see now more clearly than ever before that our wealth in recourses was given to us for this very reason, so that when the gods underwent this hardship, we might aid them. We have failed. We must now face punishment."

Yern saw that he was not going to win this argument. He glanced at his sensors and saw that in less than a minute it would be a mute point. Punishment or natural disaster, it was going to take place, and Yern and Vyrin had front row seats.

The Grand Ocean, as it was called, was virtually unexplored. No one had any reason to traverse it except for thrills, and the Forinians weren't thrill seekers. Because of this, there was no one to watch the incredible display that the first few space rocks presented. The scientific term for the phenomena changed from asteroids to meteors as the glowing chunks of ore streaked through the atmosphere of the planet. The planet's gravity played no role in the flight of the rocks as they were already traveling at speeds far greater than that of terminal velocity on this relatively small planet. Instead the air resistance the meteors encountered served to heat them to an incredible temperature. The ocean was deep, but the splash down was so violent, that each rock hit bottom before the water had a chance to close in over it. Each meteor displaced billions of gallons of water in a microsecond and created waves that made the mountains on shore seem remarkably small.

Rock after rock flew into the ocean, vaporizing water on impact and sending the rest in an enormous wall of destruction. After the brief pummeling was over, over seventy-five percent of the water was either evaporated or traveling above sea level in one of the tremendous tsunamis.

The mountains received their share of hellish rain as well, only with vastly different results. Before the waves had a chance to wash over the shore, the huge peaks were treated much like sandcastles underneath a hailstorm. If Yern wasn't on the range he would have enjoyed the sight as red-hot meteorites slammed into the mountains, blowing them apart in an incredible display of power. The ground was rent asunder as each summit was reduced to a humble stump, its previous bulk blown apart like the shell of a nuclear weapon. None of the observatories survived, in fact, all living things with in sight of the event were rendered lifeless. Long sleeping volcanoes were brought back to life and added to the general chaos as they spewed their own fire in protest to the sky's cruel treatment of the landscape. Millions of tons of snow were evaporated in seconds from the heat, and an enormous cloud covered the sky, adding to the soot, ash, and rock that had already been displaced into the stratosphere.

The jungle basin below was not in the line of fire as the asteroids flew parallel to the ground, past the side of the planet, but the mountain range provided enough turmoil to change the jungle forever. Rivers of lava flowed into the formerly fertile greenery, drying and scorching the foliage. Huge waves of ash and rock rained down upon the trees in a minor replay of what had just plagued the mountain range. All was brought to a sudden halt when a several mile tall wave came crashing into the coast. The mountains, had they retained their impressive height, would have done little to stop the waves. As it was, the water pretended to not even notice the rocky rubble and covered half of the continent like a huge bed sheet. The huge amounts of lava turned immediately hard and, in turn, evaporated much of the water, sending more steam into the air. Each successive wave grew smaller and soon the geological torture session was over, leaving behind a mud and ash soaked wasteland that would not produce life again for a millennia.

On the other coast, the violence was much more subdued. The few meteors that rained down on the dessert, created dust clouds that turned day into night and enormous craters that were the result of removing so much sand so quickly. The waves that washed over these two continents could have been helpful if they were a millionth in size. With the craters, lakes could have been created, and a barren land could have been fruitful. Instead, a barren land became non existent, as the mostly sea level dessert was swept into oblivion.

For the most part, the devastation stayed away from the populated sections, though a few big waves sneaked through the spooned continents and quakes were felt over the whole planet, but nothing compared to the cloud cover that enveloped the entire globe. All contact to the outside world was cut off as communication depended on radio transmitters powered by weak generators, which could not penetrate the cloud.

The people of Forinad had no where to go and no means to cry for help. They had received no warning, and had no way of knowing what had happened. Now they had to just sit and wait. For the populated regions it was night, and the only clues they had to what had occurred were the few asteroids that had missed and appeared to be shooting stars streaking through the night. Minutes later, their sky was blotted out by a blanket that the dawn would not remove.

***

Anakin sat in the X-wing, prepping the ship for flight. It was an old ship, too old to still be in use, but it had gained fame in the early days of the Rebellion and because of men like his uncle and Antilles, who was prepping the ship next to him, the craft would never truly be retired. Tremon had opted to take the more heavily armed, but less nimble B-wing leaving the third X-wing for the fourth member of their squadron, a Lieutenant Binzley.

When Wedge had been informed that the sub-light engines had also been taken of line and all the ship was capable of was full impulse, he wondered if the cruiser was going to be anything more than just a over-glorified carrier. They weren't going to drop in right next to the asteroids, and they would need to locate them and track them down. The asteroids would be traveling faster than full impulse, and if they jumped in behind the rocks, the cruiser would be useless. Its only contribution to the plan would have been to try to use its tractor beams to redirect the asteroids. It was more than likely that with the old software that had been loaded into the computer at the last second, the sensors wouldn't be able to handle the multiple targets, and the beams wouldn't have been able to do anything anyway.

Anakin watched his wrist chrono tick down under a minute remaining in their hyperspace flight. He knew that one of the planets had already received their dosage of rock-rain, and he also understood that what Forinad had undergone was mild compared to what lay in store for Denor and Trewist. Forinad had received the asteroids that had slingshot around the sun. The only asteroids that would have done that were the smaller ones with less momentum to keep them on a straight path. The ones that were heading for the other two planets were probably, on the average, twice the size of the Forinad asteroids.

Anakin sensed the ship drop out of hyperspace, and the bay doors in the hangar immediately opened. Anakin, Wedge, and Tremon were out of the cruiser's hangar in a flash, while Binzely was slower and hadn't prestarted his fighter.

Wedge was the squadron leader (of sorts) and had his ship looking for the asteroids as soon as they left the sensor shield that was the cruiser. "I'm picking up some blips about fifty thousand clicks away toward Denor."

"Copy that," Tremon said. His B-wing had the best sensor array, and he could actually get an estimated count of the rocks. "There's close to four hundred of them. This won't be easy."

"No one said it would be," Wedge said, trying to eliminate the negative comments from the get go. "Anakin, you just about ready?"

They had preplaned their strategy and had decided that since they had Anakin's abilities at their disposal, they would make a micro jump to get to the asteroids as quickly as possible. The nav-coms wouldn't allow such a calculation to take place do to the numerous safeties built in, but Anakin had no safeties built into his mind.

"I'm sending the coordinates and jump duration over the com channel link now," the Jedi responded.

A few seconds later all four ships flashed out of real space, only to flash back in a second later. All four pilots gasped slightly at the sight before them. The huge collection of rocks wasn't that unnatural to an experienced pilot who has been around an asteroid field or two, but never had so many traveled so fast and in the same direction.

"The field is seventy-five thousand klicks wide and half of it should hit Denor within the next thirteen minutes," Tremon reported, examining what his sensors were telling him, "and the other half will proceed past the planet most of which will be caught by the gravitational pull of Trewist in about forty-five minutes."

"What about Forinad?" Binzely asked.

"We're not going to worry about that," Wedge said. "We don't have either the time or the mental luxury to worry about their well-being. Tremon, I want you to try and determine where the cut-off point is in the asteroid field. Try and figure out which asteroids are going to hit which planet. We need to take care of the Denor asteroids first. You try and make a line and come over from the middle. Binzley, you start on the far side and work in. Anakin and I are going to fly inside and work our way out. I don't want either of you other two attempting to fly inside the field. It's far too dangerous, and if one of us goes down, we loose a fourth of our fire power."

All four ships knew their tasks and departed toward the moving field. Anakin wasted no time diving into the field taking shots at each rock that entered his scope. Wedge had been out of the cockpit for a while, but as the situation presented itself, all his skill came flooding back, and he plunged in after the Jedi.

Anakin was quickly wishing that he had his E-wing with him. The battery on the newer ship was much more powerful and could last a lot longer. After thirty rapid fire shots, the X-wing's battery was depleted, and Anakin had to wait about ten seconds in between shots. Trusting in his skill as a pilot, Anakin lowered his shields to give more power to the weapons, but it helped only a little.

Thirteen minutes was just not enough time to destroy two hundred asteroids. The problem with most of the rocks was that after you blew them apart, most of the pieces were still large enough to cause serious damage. All four ships had the critical size for an asteroid to burn up in the atmosphere, and any rock that was small enough to ignore, the sensors regarded as unviable targets.

The planet of Denor loomed large in the view screens of the four pilots, and as it became obvious that mass destruction was inevitable, Tremon and Binzley pulled away. Anakin and Wedge, still inside the asteroids, stayed with the projectiles, following them into the planet's atmosphere. "You two go see if you can't do something about the other asteroids," Wedge said over the com.

"I'm detecting many large cities on the coast," Anakin said. "If you can, try and circle the coast and get any of the big ones that come close. I'm going to see if I can't do something about the waves."

Wedge didn't reply, but flew hard and fast toward the most hospitable coastline he could see. All around him asteroids were streaking into the planet's surface, causing enormous explosions. Wedge wasn't used to the sound of explosions echoing through his ship during a battle since every fight he'd ever been in took place in the vacuum of space. As the several hundred-ton rocks slammed into the ground beneath him, the shock waves not only hurt his ears, but also shook the entire ship. As Wedge blew one asteroid into smaller fragments, he watched in horror as another he wasn't able to get to pulverized a residential section of the city, leveling twenty square miles instantly and treating the ground as if it were water, sending a shock wave that crumbled even more houses. He then saw the shrapnel that he had created turn several skyscrapers into confetti as they ripped through the large buildings. Wedge flew the best routines of his life, only to watch the ground and people beneath him turn into molten carnage as the rain of fire came down all around him. Soon the sky was so filled with smoke and ash that Wedge was flying blind. He knew that he needed to stay around as long as possible but also knew if he got hit by one of the now unseen asteroids, he would be of no use to the people of Trewist. Wedge, very reluctantly, turned his ship to the sky and let his sensors find a clear path for him through the falling rocks.

Anakin flew far out over the vast ocean where the blazing hot rocks made steaming entries into water, creating an incredible wake. Anakin knew exactly what that wake would become when it reached the shoreline. Out in deep water, tidal waves didn't look that impressive. They were simply pulses that were caused by some compressive force. Usually it was the wind; this time it was huge kiloton rocks. The pulses moved through the water very quickly, but as the pulse approached the shoreline and the depth got shallower, the bottom of the pulse slowed, pulling the top, and still quickly moving part, out of the water. As the wave entered increasingly shallow water, the top of the wave grew taller and taller, threatening to topple over because of its lagging base, until finally the whole thing fell over. Normally since the wind is only able to affect the water a few feet deep, the height of the pulse isn't very big, and it isn't until the pulse reaches the shore that it stands up. In this case, the pulse was the entire depth of the ocean, and would likely be several miles tall when it reached shore. The shear speed of the pulse would prevent it from breaking until it ran out of water.

Anakin followed the first of the pulses as it headed toward shore. He hoped that the other shoreline that he was neglecting wasn't as heavily populated as the one he was going to try and protect. As soon as the wave began to rise, Anakin swept down in front of it and flew parallel to the quickly growing wall of water. As soon as the wave peaked above a hundred feet, Anakin brought his X-wing down right alongside the base of the wave and activated his tractor beam. He couldn't possibly hope to be able to get a lock on the intangible liquid, but he let the pulling force trail him as he sped along base of the wave like a surfer. Unlike any surfboard used on Gensifery, the X-wing's tractor beam created a huge resistance against the forward progress of the water, and behind Anakin, the wave began to break over on its self. Anakin finished his sweep at the estimated length of the coastline and observed his handy-work. He had in no way stopped the wave, but he had stolen a lot of its speed. As the pulse began to build up its height again, it was hit from behind by another pulse from one of the other meteors. The result was an instantly tall wave that nearly took Anakin out of the sky. The wave had no balance and immediately came crashing down. Then a third wave came crashing into the turbulence and a fourth and a fifth. Soon an enormous pulse with very little speed, but a ton of momentum was moving out of the mess towards the coast. Anakin followed the wave toward the shore, having to bring it down prematurely three other times before it made it to land.

When Anakin reached the shoreline, he almost wondered if it had been worth saving. The entire coast seemed to be burning or crumbling. There didn't seem to be any direct hits from large asteroids, but the Jedi could see many small pockmarks and further inland, there was evidence of huge earthquake activity that no doubt had played a part in the carnage below. The wave came in and wiped the entire coast clean of landmarks. The wave was thorough, much more thorough than it would have been had Anakin left it alone, but it only reached a mile or two inland. It would have stretched its destruction almost a hundred miles left unchecked. When the wave rolled back, Anakin saw only bare ground as if no one had ever even built a shack there.

With a huge sigh, Anakin pointed his X-wing toward the sky and headed toward the other asteroids.

***

Leia read the report with mixed feelings. Forinad had escaped total destruction with a death count that didn't even reach a thousand, but it was going to endure a long nuclear winter that the planet might not be able to handle. It and Denor might both enter an ice age, though for Denor it didn't really matter. The destruction on that planet had been complete. Unlike Forinad, the more heavily populated region of Denor had been facing the hellish downpour. There wasn't one square mile of the world that hadn't in some way been affected by the meteors, whether it had been a slight tremor or the instantaneous evaporation of every strand of DNA within fifty miles. Over three fourths of the planet's population had been killed, and many more would die before the relief that the Republic had sent the day before could reach them.

Trewist was a different story. Wedge had reported that they had been able to reduce almost all of the rocks into debris, which could be burned up in the atmosphere, but this turned out to spell doom for the planet anyway. Trewist had been the industrial hub of the Denorid system being the source of almost all of the system's natural resources. Because of the countless factories that existed there, the ozone layer was very fragile. Several domes had been erected on the planet to try and filter out the impurities that were belched into the sky constantly, but the ozone layer was always on the brink of destruction. The burning up of megatons of space rock, was more than enough to totally collapse the protective shell. Now, while the other two planets prepared for an ice age, Trewist had to get ready for immense global warming.

Leia tried to take this information with a grain of salt. Two out of the three planets were saved, at least the people were. They weren't in any immediate danger, and if necessary, they could be relocated. Though this was a dismal outcome, it was far better than total destruction for all three worlds, which would have been the outcome had she done nothing.

****

Chapter 12 "Money Matters"

"You seem to have lost your limp."

Luke didn't say anything as he walked into the cockpit and sat down in the copilot's chair next to his captain. Mara didn't comment further and returned to her controls. They were nearing the Varion system, and Mara was making sure that everything was checking out okay. Iom was very particular about the ships they let land, not wanting too many unsavory types clogging up the layers of population like the lower levels of Coruscant.

"You wanted to ask me something," Luke said, not looking at Mara, but staring straight ahead. After a few seconds without a response, the Jedi Master turned to face her. "At breakfast the other morning you started to say something, but didn't finish. Plus Han said that you wanted to talk to me back on Coruscant, and I don't think you wanted to invite me on this joy ride."

"Have you ever heard of the Zorian?" she responded with out looking up from her gauges and readings.

"The what?"

"That's what I thought. I knew you would have absolutely no clue."

"Surely you have some context to which you can relate the word," Luke said, not wanting to be proven worthless. "I mean you just didn't randomly open the dictionary and point to the first word you found."

Mara looked up finally. "If I did that, I hardly think I would end up with a word starting with 'Z.'" Mara went back to her checking. "No, I remember the word from a dream I had two months ago."

"What was the dream?"

Mara sighed. She had decided against bringing it up earlier because she knew that Luke wouldn't know, but she would have to explain everything anyway. "Okay, you want to play psychologist? In this dream I was standing on a windswept barren planet. The curvature of the ground was really extreme, so I think it was more like a moon, but the gravity seemed normal."

"You can remember what the gravity was like in your dream?" Luke asked incredulously.

"You, of all people, should understand what I'm talking about. Don't tell me you've never had a dream of the future and remembered every little detail."

"Is that what you think this was? A Force dream of the future?"

"If you let me finish without interruption, maybe we could get there. I was standing on this planet, for lack of a better word, and the sky was really stormy. There was no water or vegetation in sight, just rocks and sand. Lightening was ripping through the sky, and the wind whipped the dark clouds in dizzying, swirled patterns. Anyway, Palpatine was there in front of me. For all I remember of the planet, I can't really remember how the he got there. It was kind of like he was always there, but I only saw him when my dream progressed to a certain stage. I can't remember if it was just his face or his whole body or what. All I remember exactly is what he said. 'You have failed. The Zorian is coming, and I shall complete the job.' After that I woke up."

Luke paused in thought. He had never been to a planet like the one Mara had described. Luke definitely thought it to be a planet, and a breathable one at that. There were certainly oxygenless planets out there with lightening storms, but the clouds looked nothing like storm clouds that Mara had ever seen before, and the wind wouldn't be mild enough for anyone to endure, even in a dream, especially a Force dream.

"Now, there is only one task of his which I have failed."

"Killing me," Luke answered the trivia.

"Exactly. I thought that since this Zorian is going to help him kill you, you might know who or what it is. To get back to your dictionary example, I did look it up, but it took a galactic library to produce a definition. It is an ancient word from a language that used to be the common tongue before Basic. It means 'the return' or 'to return.'"

Luke swallowed hard. He didn't need to have the significance explained to him. This meant that the Emperor was going to return, if not in person, then in spirit. The actual Zorian could be anything. It could be a person in whom he was capable of imputing his power, or it could be an event the Emperor could shape to his liking.

"You don't know what it means, do you?" Mara asked, not expecting a positive reply. Getting no reply at all, she understood this for a negative. "Figures."

Luke had time to worry about this Zorian some other time, right now he was more curious about Mara's attitude. She had been overly negative this entire trip, more so than her sarcastic norm. "Your jealous." Mara looked up from the work to which she had returned at the odd statement. "That's what's eating at you, isn't it?"

"Jealous of what?" Mara decided to humor him.

"Of me, of Leia, or of us, meaning everyone, in general? I don't really know, but I can definitely tell you're jealous about something."

Mara looked at Luke for several seconds, wondering if this man really wanted to know what was on her mind and then if she wanted him to know it. "It's not jealousy, and if it were, it's not of you. You think I want to be a target? You realize that is all you are now, don't you? No more bad guys to fight, so now you have to sit around and wait for them to come to you.

"No, it's not jealousy. For what I feel they haven't created a word. It's a mixture of despise, regret, indifference, and maybe a little envy. Whatever it is, it's not aimed at you or any other one person. Have you ever thought about what you, your sister, Han, and all you other 'heroes' have accomplished? You overthrew the most powerful government in history with almost no major casualties. That is a statistical impossibility."

"What about Alderaan?" Luke countered. "I wouldn't exactly call that a light casualty."

"I mean in battles. You never attacked with more than a handfull of ships and therefore had nothing much to loose. Now, while you and a handful of people might have worked very hard to overcome the Emperor, on the outside, everyone else only sees one miraculous victory after another. For all you've gained, you never actually earned it; it just came to you. Because you never had to pay the cost for your victories, you don't know how valuable they are. If you don't see the true worth of something, you won't go out of your way to protect it."

"Are you trying to say that we aren't holding the Republic together, and that it will fall apart any day?"

"All I'm saying is that I know what the Emperor and Darth Vader went through to gain their power. They had to fight off countless rebellious worlds, the senate, and most of all the Jedi. Now, while you might not agree with what they did, you have to appreciate how they did it. It was never easy, and because of that, they protected what they had. They refused to grow soft, building ship after ship, Death Star after Death Star, trying to secure their holdings as best they could so they wouldn't disappear.

"I'm not saying the Republic should rule the galaxy with an iron fist. I believe the saying goes, 'The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers," or something like that. What I am saying is that the Republic is built upon victories that weren't earned, and because of that, the entire government is capable of collapsing with the same ease and suddenness with which it was created."

Luke sat for a long moment, trying to see if there was any credence to Mara's claims. The first death star was destroyed with one shot. The second one was destroyed after Vader had killed the Emperor. All the other battles seemed to have been won, if not easily, than at least not difficulty. Worlds had just decided to join. They didn't need to be forced, and no effort was made by the Republic to keep them as members. Things just sort of happened, and now Luke could see that things could just as easily un-happen.

"Now, if you don't mind," Mara said, interrupting Luke's thoughts, "I'll see if I can't get the strict Iom flight control to let us land."

Luke hadn't even noticed they had left hyperspace, but sat back and listened and watched as Mara ended their trip.

***

Mara stood in front of the secretary feeling quite embarrassed. "It says here that your appointment was scheduled for 9:00. It's 11:30 now, and I can make no guarantee that you will be seen today. You might have to reschedule."

Mara sighed. She had left the hotel she and Luke were staying at with plenty of time to get here, but she had been thoroughly confused by the monorail system. After she had figured that out, she had been mugged, or at least two men tried to mug her. She had disposed of them quite easily, but then found that she had missed her train. She had finally arrived at the huge office building two and a half hours late. "I know I'm late, but I have a very valuable shipment of computer software and hardware that I'm sure your boss is eager to get a hold of. If you could just call him, I'm sure he can make arrangements to see me."

"I'll see what I can do," the young woman responded. She was wearing a small earpiece connected to a microphone positioned in front of her mouth. With a press of a button on the console in front of her, she dialed up the president's office and waited. After several moments she said, "I'm afraid he's not in his office. It is very near his lunch hour. He probably left already."

"Actually, I'm on my way out."

Mara and the secretary turned to see a man walking toward them from the back of the room. Mara looked at the man who she instantly knew was the president. She had expected him to be much older, but he seemed to be very nearly her own age - mid to upper forties - perhaps a year or two younger. He was well dressed, but didn't flaunt his wealth with any fancy chrono chains or stupid frills. He wasn't physically intimidating, but maintained an aura of confidence that was almost contagious.

The secretary ended the identity suspense by turning to speak. "President Snotzenexer, this woman had an appointment with you over two hours ago. Should I reschedule her appointment?"

Snotzenexer regarded Mara closely, or appeared to. He had already studied her with the security cameras when she had first entered. He had noticed a very slight bulge under her arm toward the front of her torso that was meant to look like part of her figure, but Snotzenexer was sure it was a blaster. He wondered how the men he had sent to hold her up had faired. "I don't think that will be necessary, Alicsia." He turned to look at Mara again. "We can have the meeting over a meal, if you like. I have a table reserved at the finest restaurant on Iom. I'm buying." Mara hesitated. She didn't want to get involved with this guy, she just wanted to drop off her shipment, get her ship overhauled, and leave. "Don't worry," Snotzenexer said, noticing her slight apprehension, "I'm married."

Snotzenexer's smile evaporated Mara's reluctance and she agreed. The trip to the restaurant was an uneventful, the conversation mostly consisting of idle comments about the weather and the complexity of the Iom monorail system. The restaurant itself was huge. It spanned several floors, and spared no credits on its lavish interior. The host led Snotzenexer to his table on the upper level of the restaurant, which, Mara saw immediately, was reserved for only the most prominent guests at the restaurant.

Seconds after being seated their waiter arrived at their table. "And how are we this afternoon?" The man asked with the kind of accent that you could only find in expensive restaurants.

"We're fine, thank-you," Snotzenexer said. "I will be having the usual, of course, but might you wait a few minutes so that the lady has a moment to glance at the menu."

"Certainly, sir."

"Excuse me," Mara asked in the same style of sickening politeness that Snotzenexer and the waiter were using. "May I inquire as to what the 'usual' is?"

Snotzenexer motioned to the waiter, giving him the honors of reciting the order. "On this particular day of the week, I believe that the president enjoys dinning on a twelve ounce tender loin nerf steak done medium rare, marinated in Tranion nectar, and garnished with breaded gorguanut slices. To drink, I believe he takes our fifty-year Varion dinner wine, with an olive. Desert consists of a rippled Bolian cream tort with chilled Goyan berries."

Mara decided that the intent of this meeting was to intimidate her. She really couldn't understand why the head of one of the largest banks in the galaxy would want to unnerve a simple trader, but that was what appeared to be happening. She didn't plan on going quietly. "That sounds good. I think I'll have the same, only could you change the steak to a sixteen-ounce medium well. Oh, and could you change the gorguant slices from breaded to sautéed. And could you exchange the local wine, though I'm sure it's excellent, with a sixty-year Alderaanian port."

With the last alteration, the waiter glanced quickly at Snotzenexer for confirmation. The admiral could barely keep his smile back at Mara's boldness and nodded at the waiter. Since Alderaan no longer existed, its wines, which were in high demand before the Death Star made a demonstration of the planet, were now considered the finest anywhere. With the rarity of the wine, there came a much-inflated price. Mara's small glass of wine cost as much as the rest of her meal and Snotzenexer's combined. Mara actually had about twelve cases of the wine stored away in very secluded part of Yavin IV, just waiting for the price to become astronomical.

"Oh," Mara added, pretending not to notice the exchange between the two men, "I've never been a huge fan of cream tort, even Bolian, but the chilled Goyan berries sound good. If you could find a way to put them in a crumb pie topped with vanilla creamed-ice, I'd be grateful."

"I'm sure I can arrange it, Madam." After waiting a brief while to see if Mara would make any other requests, the waiter disappeared, only to be replaced a few seconds later by a young serving waitress and their salads.

Snotzenexer was glad for Mara's choice of wine. When one thought of Alderaan, the Death Star comes to mind. When one thought of the Death Star, the Empire came to mind. When one thought of the Empire, the Rebellion came to mind. When one thought of the Rebellion, the Republic came to mind. "You just came from Coruscant, if I'm not mistaken, tell me, what do you think if the Republic?"

Didn't I just have this conversation with Luke last night? "It seems to be strong," she said carefully as she choose a dressing from the relish tray that came with the salads, "but I feel that if it ever underwent any kind of difficulty it would fall apart, or at least reshape itself. Why do you ask?"

Snotzenexer pretended to ignore the inquiry. "Are you aware of what is going on in the Denorid system?" The admiral's question drew a blank stare from his dinning companion. "Do you know where the Denorid system is?"

"I'm afraid not. Should I?"

"Yesterday all three inhabited planets of the system were hit by a large meteor shower that all but destroyed the ecosystems on all three planets and killed over three billion people. The Republic had been warned that the three planets were in danger but they decided it was in their best interest to ignore the cry for help. It was only when the essence of the danger became known that they did anything, and by then it was too late. Right now a lot of dissension is going through the ranks of the government and this could very well be the 'difficulty' you mentioned in your analysis."

Mara almost choked on her lettuce. "Are you saying that even while we are eating the fabric that holds much of the galaxy together is coming apart?"

"Not really," Snotzenexer said with a smile that would comfort a charging bull. "It is more or less changing the guard."

"Like you said earlier, I just came from there and I heard nothing."

"It was kept secret until the morning you left. Since then the current president is undergoing some heavy scrutiny."

"I wonder if Luke knows," Mara said under breath.

"Luke who?"

Mara scolded her self silently at her extreme carelessness. It didn't matter too much considering that it was only a harmless bank president, but what if people were listening or Snotzenexer talked to someone. Luke was supposed to be incognito. If there were Imperials here and they knew that Luke was here, he would be in definite trouble. "Oh he's just a fellow trader I know. Kind of an old friend. He has ties to the Republic. What is the general reaction to the events?" Mara asked, trying to change the subject.

"The public at large hasn't found out yet. I have special sources that give me the news before it hits the networks. I assume that the public will be confused as to why and how this could happen, but that will change to either sorrow or anger depending on what slant the non-Republic networks put on it. They could call it a terrible tragedy where nature decided to rain fire and brimstone, or they could call it carelessness on the part of the Republic and an accident that could have been avoided."

After he was done with his speech, their food arrived. After a few bites of the succulent steak, Snotzenexer seemed to remember something. "Are you familiar with the Coellant Ore Refinery?" As he spoke he pulled out a modified data pad.

"Who isn't? I've ran shipments for them a few times. What do they have to do with anything?"

"Are you aware of their fanatical religious beliefs?"

"Yea, the whole company is run by a bunch of monks who had decided to live a life among the stars to be with their gods. They settled on an asteroid field and quite accidentally discovered the richest deposit of natural ore in the known galaxy. Since then they run the largest durasteel and titanium production facility anywhere."

"Because of their fanatical religion," Snotzenexer said, "they have always looked out for the more primitive races who still hold to their beliefs that the gods live amongst the stars. Because of this I'm willing to bet that they are going to halt their production for the Republic. Who's their biggest customer in the Republic?"

Mara saw that Snotzenexer was beginning to call up some figures on the stock holdings of the bank. "You're not going to make a stock trade right here, are you? I mean don't you need to confer with some of your colleagues?"

Snotzenexer chuckled a little. "They call me a president, but it's actually more like a dictatorship. They let me do what I want. So what is the largest ship producer in the Republic?"

"The ship yards at Kalinthorp does a lot of the construction on the fighters. The biggest large ship manufactures are located at the Coruscant Ship Yards, Borcance Hull Construction, and the Engine Complex on Garrent."

"We only have stock in the Borcance Hull Construction Yards. To be honest, I've never even heard of the Engine Complex."

"So you think that the monks are just going to stop sending durasteel to the Republic because of what happened in the Denorid system? That doesn't sound like a very safe bet to me. I mean the Republic is in need of ships right now because of their losses at Danzig 359. If anything, I would invest in the ship companies."

Snotzenexer was surprised with Mara's knowledge. Almost everyone knew about the fight in the Danzig system, but only a handful outside of those involved knew exactly around which star the battle had happened. "You have to look at it from their perspective, the monks I mean. They can sell their durasteel to anyone, and they are very fanatical. If they feel that their product is being wasted on a government that doesn't answer pleas of help from fellow brothers of the faith, then they will find another buyer to ease their conscience. The only question I have is to whom are they going to sell their durasteel now. I mean durasteel isn't as plentiful as it used to be, so they will have no problem finding a different buyer, but since almost a fifth of their business is with the Republic, some other company is going to be able to receive literally tons of metal at bargain prices."

A light went on in Mara's head. "I heard about a company off in the corporate sector that has a few very good architects and engineers working for them. They specialize in huge cathedrals and really elaborate opera houses and such. Each year they get hundreds of projects presented to them and can only accept about twenty because of the shortage of natural resources in the corporate sector. If they could get their hands on some more material, they would be able to double their profits in a year. I've seen some of the buildings they've put up, believe me, they are works of art."

Snotzenexer had had a few companies picked out already, but this wasn't one of them. He usually never deviated from his path once he had decided upon it, but this move was basically only part of his plan so he could hurt the Republic more. He could really care less where he reinvested the returns from the sold Republic stock. But this idea of Mara's could work. "That sounds good, I'll have to look into it." Snotzenexer put his data pad away, keeping his stocks where they were for now, but making a mental note to get in contact with this company in the corporate sector.

As the deserts came, they finally got down to the business that had brought Mara to Iom in the first place. "Where is your ship docked?"

"It's actually almost on the other side of the planet. They told me it would cost me a bundle to dock anywhere else."

"I'll tell you what, you can park it in my personal hangar right next to the bank. That will make unloading a lot easier than having to use transports in between the bank and your ship."

"That's sounds good. I'll have to wait for my copilot so he knows that I'm moving the ship and doesn't get lost."

"Got a new guy working for you?"

For some reason Mara didn't feel that the question was that odd, but on later reflection, knowing what was going to happen in the next two weeks, she would feel that the question was a little out of place. Why would President Snotzenexer care about her copilot? "Yea, I picked him up on Coruscant. I have no idea how long he'll last. He's got a wild streak in him, though you'd never know it by looking at him."

Snotzenexer knew exactly who it was.

They talked for a little while longer, deciding on a price that Mara was very pleased with, and upon finishing the meal, they parted ways.

***

Lando leaned back in his chair. "Wow! I suppose you have documentation to support this outlandish story." Han threw him the papers that Drexin and Kerik had given him plus some more he had manage to beg out of the two "financial experts." "I can't believe that the Republic leaders would allow this to happen. I mean this is incredible."

"Well look at their alternatives," Han said. "I don't think a huge taxation will solve this problem. What we need to do is wipe the slate clean and just start over."

"Either that or invent a time machine so we can go back and show Mon Mothma the balance thirty years in advance."

"This whole thing wouldn't really be a problem if we had remained small and not sucked in all the ex-Imperial worlds. I mean if something should happen that would reveal the financial state of the Republic, nothing would come of it if the member worlds acted together, but I know that the Imperials are just waiting for a chance to jump all over Leia and depose her. It would divide the senate right down the middle."

"Now you're telling me that these records were stolen a few days ago and you want me to come up with a solution to avoid chaos when the thief makes his findings public?"

"I don't know if you can exactly solve the problem, but we need to find a way to keep everyone calm when it does hit. We have to be able to convince people that absolutely nothing has changed. Everyone was doing fine when the money wasn't there and they didn't know about. Now that they do know about it, if they acted ignorantly, everything will still be fine."

"And you want me to . . ." Lando started, wanting Han to fill in the rest.

"Prove it with a bunch of cool financial mumbo jumbo. Not too many people know you as a former military man from the Rebellion days. They would just see you as a businessman who has just as much to loose as everyone else. If you can convince them that they won't HAVE to loose anything if they don't want to, we would be able to avoid a big problem." Han looked at Lando for his reaction, but saw that his friend was absorbed in the papers in front of him. "Yo, Lando, are you listening?"

"Did you look at these things?"

"Yea, they're just a bunch of numbers and percentages. I really didn't understand much of it. I don't think anyone really can."

"I can," Lando said, "and you're right, it doesn't make any sense. Come here and look at this." Han got up from his chair to see what Lando was looking at. "When you took control of the Emperor's stocks and sold them, you were charged for retroactive taxation on the stock's earnings. But look here, the recorded earnings of the stocks you seized doesn't match the corresponding taxation."

"What do you mean?"

"Look, the Coruscant bank at the time you took over charged a seven percent flat tax on all profits, but what you were charged is a lot more than that. That means that the Emperor's stock profits were greater than those of the ones you seized."

"Meaning that the Emperor had more stocks than the ones we seized," Han said, catching on. "Do you think they are still out there? I mean it's been a long time. Don't you think that someone at the bank would notice that we missed some?"

"Not if they were bought under a dummy name and controlled by a computer that was programmed to fiddle with them every once and a while to keep them active."

"So how do we get them?"

"Not so fast, I think there's more. I once was given an account number of the Empire's to withdraw some funds. I don't see that account here among the ones you seized."

"When were you in the employ of the Empire?"

"Hey, Vader promised me a pretty credit for selling you guys to the Empire back on Cloud City. I never did cash in that voucher. Now that I think about it, I'm sure it wouldn't have worked. Vader double crossed me so many times, he probably had the account triggered to alert officials to my presence and come and arrest me."

Han managed to smirk at the unpleasant memory of being frozen in carbonite. "Out of curiosity, how much did a man make for selling his friends to the highest bidder twenty-some-odd years ago?"

"Not as much as you might think," Lando said back, refusing to enter the playful bickering that Han had hinted at. "Regardless, I brought up that not-so-pleasant memory for a reason. Vader gave me an account number, and I don't see it listed here."

"Are you trying to tell me that you actually remember the number from that long ago?"

"I don't remember exactly what the number was, but I remember what the format was like, and I don't see it here. There are different types of accounts for different purposes, Han. You have your bonds and CD's that you can't touch until a certain date. There are accounts that are set up for the sole purpose of transferring them to others - kind a way of setting up a payable account for upcoming purchases. I personally have an account that is linked to my credit voucher so I can withdrawal from it any time I want. The account that Vader had given me was similar in fashion, but it was complex enough to put a limit on the amount of and number of withdrawals - perfect for paying people for services rendered without having to worry about the transfer yourself.

"I am assuming the Emperor and Vader had many of these accounts set up to pay people such as bounty hunters, Jabba, Xizor,-"

"-yourself," Han interrupted, not letting the crime be forgotten.

"Yes," Lando gave in, "and me. Anyway, these were obviously meant to be kept secret from the public, seeing how it was mostly blood money." Han held back the urge to mention whose blood. "I don't see any of those accounts here."

"So what you are saying is that there are a lot more accounts of the old Empire sitting around that we haven't taken. I don't think so."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," explained Han, "we have been over the computer records up and down, back and forth, and there is nothing there that we haven't found already. If there was some secret credit stash somewhere, we would have found it."

Lando shook his head slowly. "You don't understand yet. This account I had was set up to be accessed from outside the palace and, most of the time, outside of Coruscant. There are no inside lines to the computers that control this account. You can only access the account from the outside with one of the numbers that are given to the people who are aloud to access it. If we could get someone to try to access the account from the outside and monitor all the receivers on the roof, we could tell which one was wired to the account."

"Couldn't we just test all the antennas with random numbers until we stumble on it?" Han asked.

"Have you ever looked at the roof top? There have to be over a thousand antennas up there. If I remember correctly, the account number that was given to me was over fifteen digits long. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by telling how long it would take to cycle through fifteen digits over a thousand times. Don't forget that each of the antennas have a purpose, and I'm sure that they each have some code or frequency that would gain us access to something. Being able to tell what that was would be next to impossible."

"Okay," Han submitted, "so where do you keep your account number?"

"That's the catch, isn't it?" Han didn't need to be told that Lando had lost it. "Don't worry, I think I know how we can get a hold of someone who still has a number. Heck, he's still probably drawing funds."

"Do you know how we can get a hold of this former, Imperial employee?"

"I think I know someone who can find him for me. I have a Jedi working for me who I think is a little sick of the mines."

****

Chapter 13 "Finding Yourself in a Crowd"

The Scavenger touched down rather abruptly on the landing pad. Jacen was running out of the ship even before Jaina had shut it down. The twins had just received clearance to land on the landing pad of the flight controller's choice, despite the vehement arguing of Jacen to put them down next to the trading ship that had landed twenty minutes earlier.

Jaina walked out of the ship after it was properly shut down and locked against any possible thefts, although the patchwork outside did not invite much attention from ship thieves. She glanced around the hangar as a roof began to close over the landing pad. She finally saw her brother about a fifty meters away at the nearest computer console. She knew that he would be searching the flight records of recent arrivals to try and find out exactly where on this small planet of Aldertain Eran had landed. Jaina also knew that on a planet such as this that served as a large rest stop for ships and pilots, they would have a very detailed record, but not likely open to the public.

Jaina walked up behind her brother just as he was about to draw his lightsaber and excavate the information manually. "Mind if I try?" Jaina asked.

Jacen turned around, his face flushed with rage at his incompetent attempts to extract the info from the terminal. Jaina quite calmly found the passwords, and codes she needed to enter the system's archives almost instantly and brought up the listing that Jacen wanted to see.

"He landed on almost the opposite side of the planet!" Jacen screamed. "He could be anywhere. He could have even taken off again."

"I don't think so," Jaina said, trying to calm her brother. "It says here that the ship is still on its assigned pad, and there are no unauthorized takeoffs in the past twenty minutes."

"Is there a mass transit somewhere near where we can get around this hunk of rock?" Jacen asked, relaxing a little.

"It says that there is a magno-suspension jet service about half a mile from here. We should be able to circle the globe pretty quickly on one of those. If you have any credits on you," Jaina added, catching Jacen flat-footed. He had been in such a hurry to chase down Eran, that he hadn't even packed an extra set of clothes. Jaina held up her own credit voucher, sending Jacen a look that this was not going to be a solo mission (despite their last name), but a unified effort.

***

A smart person would have put as much distance between themselves and their ship as possible upon landing, knowing that they were being followed. No one had ever mistaken Eran for smart. He wasn't stupid, but very few of his actions were based upon much thought, and he tended to operate purely spontaneously.

Eran really wanted to know who was following him. If it were just a few Republic security police, he was going to dispatch them, knowing they wouldn't be missed too greatly. He really needed to get back to Iom, and he couldn't be followed anymore. If it were someone more important, like he feared, he would have to figure out some other method of evading further pursuit.

Eran's fears were proven correct an hour after he had landed when Jacen came streaking into the hangar. Eran was hiding behind a few drums of propellant in the corner of the large room, and scoffed at the over-anxious Jedi from his vantagepoint. Did Jacen really think that Eran was dumb enough to still be hanging around his ship? Eran paused a while at the stupidity of the thought he had just had.

Jacen ran over to the trading ship to make sure that it was the same one he had helped unload on Coruscant. Eran was beginning to wonder if there was any way he would be able to evade the temperamental Jedi without killing him when Jaina walked into the hangar. Eran let out a sigh, not only because he was glad to have a chance to talk with Jacen's beautiful sister once more, but also because the level-headed female seemed to be the counterbalance to Jacen's temper.

"He's not here," Jacen spoke the obvious, not turning away from the ship but sensing that his sister had entered.

"Did you really think he would be dumb enough to hang around here with us chasing him and this being the first place we'd look?"

From Eran's hiding spot, Jaina's logic sounded impeccable, and the Imperial agent wondered if he hadn't made a mistake by waiting for them. Jacen turned around slowly. "He was here," he paused, his eyes looking for the answer that his mind was searching for. "In fact he was here very recently. I wouldn't be surprised if . . ." his voice trailed off, as he appeared lost in thought, his eyes slightly glazed over.

Eran cursed himself out violently. He should have known who was following him and that he wouldn't be able to hide from a Jedi only a few dozen meters away. Eran's violent emotion did him in as both siblings turned suddenly toward the barrels at the emotional disturbance fluttering through the Force. Jaina had heightened her senses at her brother's words, and now both of them walked slowly toward the corner where Eran was hiding. Jacen detached his lightsaber from his belt, and Eran knew he would have to run or fight. Neither option was very promising but one was far more agreeable than the other.

Though both Jedi sensed something behind the fuel drums, they were quite surprised to see Eran rise up from behind them and bolt for the door. The shock wore off on Jaina first, but Jacen made the first move of pursuit, sprinting after the offending arson. The magno-suspension jet the twins had gotten off was still unloading outside the hangar, and the swarm of people heading to their respective landing pads gave Eran a little cover as he plunged into the pedestrian mass. Jacen didn't need visual contact to track his prey. With Eran's emotions as riled as they were, following the Imperial agent was a kin to tracking a golden droid in a crowd of ewoks.

"Jacen!" Jaina screamed after the pair, but her voice was lost in her brother's haste. Jaina gave a fierce sigh at the inability of her brother to keep anything under control and reluctantly gave chase to the two irresponsible men.

The planet of Aldertain was a rest spot for the weary, an oasis in the dessert of space, or, more likely, a tourist trap. Above all, it was an excellent place to loose yourself. The astrographical positioning of the planet couldn't have been better if planetary repulsers had placed it there. In hyperspace, there are very few trips that are a straight shot. Though, as implied by its name, space is mostly empty, the small amounts of matter that did exist in its vastness created enormous gravity wells, necessitating curved hyperspace paths.

Aldertain was the exception. It had a straight path toward over twenty different systems including Coruscant, Corellia, Calamari, and even the Hapan cluster. Though the shortest routes between these planets usually bypassed Aldertain, the rest stop was often only half a day out of the way and turning a six day trip into a six and a half day trip with a planet stop in the middle was often more desirable. Because of this, the planet was always crowded and consisted of nothing other than restaurants and shops. There were no industries on Aldertain that didn't deal directly with furnishing the travelers with everything he/she/it could possibly want or need.

Neither Eran nor the twins had paid the planet much attention since arriving on the globe, but now as Eran looked for cover in the crowd that was shrinking as people dissipated, he found that his choices were endless. Opposite the jet landing was a long strip of inter-connected shops and small eateries catering to the widest range of clientele Eran had ever seen. The Imperial agent ducked into the first shop and disappeared from view. Jacen waded through the sentient sea of beings and came to the last spot he had seen Eran. A quick survey of the surroundings dictated the most likely path for his prey, and the Jedi made fast to follow.

***

Borng Zefny had been on Aldertain for over thirty years and was very well respected among the slue of shop owners in the province. He was serving his tenth straight year as chairman of the provincial council, and it was widely thought that the prosperity of his province as well as much of the eastern continent was due to the policies that he had managed to institute. Borng was, above all else, strict on crime. He was determined to make sure that Aldertain didn't turn into the dives that so many of the trading moons had become. Without solid residential, industrial, or governmental areas, it was very easy for outposts like Aldertain to turn into hideouts for criminals and a haven for bounty hunters. Unlike most of the moons that had earned a criminal reputation, Aldertain was a planet and the immense size made it harder than ever to maintain order without a prominent government.

One of the first things that Borng had insisted upon was instituting an official provincial police force. Before, so-called "do-gooders" would fight against the criminal elements that existed on the planet and then demand repayment from the businesses that they had protected. Often, the unsatisfied "protectors of the peace" caused more trouble than the criminals did. Borng had immediately recognized the old system as a lousy one and had a police force put in place. Since there was no overseeing government to control the police, the law enforcement was quick, brutal, and final. Due to the extreme measures taken against crime, the unsavory types quickly left in favor of the less rigorously controlled moons.

Even though Borng disagreed with the idea of having individual local law enforcers, he was quick to recognize a galactic protector of the peace. Jacen came running into his shop about ten seconds after Eran had. Something about the young Solo struck the old shopkeeper immediately. Jacen was wearing a green cloak that wasn't as long or encumbering as it first appeared, black pants, and a light green button-down shirt underneath. It wasn't the attire that tipped Borng off, though it was very out of place. It also wasn't the deactivated lightsaber that he was holding in his right hand, though that clinched it. It was the look in the Jedi's eyes. Borng could see the power and, right now, the fury that was contained within the hazel orbs.

Jacen met the keeper's gaze almost at once. There seemed to pass some kind of unsaid understanding between them. Without speaking, Borng lifted his left arm and pointed toward the side exit Eran had used. Jacen nodded his silent thanks and left the shop. Everyone else in the shop seemed to be oblivious to what had just happened.

As soon as Jacen left, Borng motioned to the next customer in line to wait and reached under his counter for his communicator. After dialing the head of the police force, he waited several seconds for an answer. "Yea, Jornik? We have a small situation."

***

Eran didn't bother looking behind him as he jumped in and out of stores. He knew that he had a big enough lead that Jacen wouldn't be directly visible, and if he waited to see if the Jedi was still there, he would be dead in the water. The strip mall was only so long, and soon he was back out in the open. Across the street he saw a city park and headed toward it. Now that he was out of the stores, he could see Jacen behind him.

The park was filled with families. It was a little after noon on the planet, and lunch was in session among the traveling families. The children were spread out on the various pieces of play equipment including a few jet-swings, a repulsed-go-round, and one or two even-overs. Eran watched the throng of people carefully as he approached the park at a full out run. The last thing he wanted to do was take out some innocent kid.

There was a fairly wide stream cutting the park in half bordered by sparse trees and sandy embankments. Eran made his way toward the bridge, which was covered with young children. Eran glanced over his shoulder and saw that the Jedi was making much better progress than he was and had already halved the distance between them. The stream looked like a huge roadblock, and he was sure to be caught if he didn't cross it. The stream was over ten meters across, and the stone bridge contained at least five children clogging the top. Eran examined the one and a half meter-wide bridge with its meter-high walls that the children's arms were hanging over as they dropped various objects into the slow moving water, awing at the splash patterns they made.

Eran took five running steps up the steep bridge. Any parent who happened to be watching gasped as his sixth step placed his right foot on the stone railing and his seventh sent him hurtling over the small cluster of children, landing smoothly on the second half of the bridge, not missing a step. The motion caught the attention of almost everyone in the park and as Jacen approached the stream, everyone watched intently. Jacen ignored the crowded bridge and leaped over the water directly, his flight path almost exactly mimicking the curvature of the stone bridge.

Jaina wasn't too far behind the pair, and all the children recognized her as the third person in the incredible parade and swamped her before she could follow her brother's routine. "Can you jump the stream too?" "Can you do a flip half-way over?" "How about a double flip?" Jaina sighed heavily as she waded slowly through the mob, looking into the distance and seeing that her brother was almost on top of Eran.

The far end of the park was more heavily forested with a narrow path that led back into the commercial section of the city. Eran charged ahead through the gap in the trees to emerge on a nearly barren street. He pulled up quickly as he saw why the public had been evacuated. Borng had contacted the police, and five of them stood in a semi-circle waiting for him. None of them had drawn their weapons yet, but they each had a holstered blaster on one hip with a shock stick on the other. Eran spun around, realizing that now was not the best time to stop and dove to the side as Jacen came charging past him.

The trained warrior came up in a roll and now faced all six of his adversaries. Jacen had turned around and walked toward him slowly, staying in the middle of the police's semi-circle. "What has he done, Jedi?" Eran noticed that if Jacen was startled by the cop's recognition of him, he didn't show it. "If it is a crime against the people or property of this province, he belongs to us."

Jacen's gaze never left Eran. "I will deal with him."

"Come on, Jacen," Eran tried to talk with him. "I had nothing to do with anything, and you know it. You came a long way for nothing." Eran could see that he wasn't going to be able to reason with the ill tempered Jedi at this moment, so he tried a new tactic. "Besides, you can't beat me in a straight up fight."

Jacen still held his lightsaber in his hand, and he ignited it. Eran was wearing a loose fitting, animal-skin jacket and pulled Jacen's stolen lightsaber out of an inner pocket. When the police saw that Eran had a lightsaber as well, they stepped back a little, thinking that Eran must be another Jedi. "You may not kill him here!" one of the cops yelled. "We have strict laws and regulations regarding criminal punishment, and you are in our jurisdiction now."

If Jacen heard them, he didn't show it. Eran's eyes were skipping around, looking at Jacen, the cops behind him, and over his own shoulder, wondering what had happened to Jaina. Jaina was currently leading a small troop of curious children towards the edge of the park. When she saw what was happening, she stopped suddenly and tried to convince the children to stay away from the action.

Eran's mind was racing as he tried to see a way out of this tight spot, but as he realized that he was going to have to fight, his body became suddenly relaxed as he felt himself strengthening. He used his outward, skittish appearance to mask his sudden offensive attack and charged at Jacen. Jacen was more than ready for the attack, but also remembered their last encounter. Not wanting to be fooled by a fake attack, the Jedi sidestepped the charge at the last second and swung into Eran's passing back. His opponent's attack wasn't a fake, and Eran sensed the attack coming toward his back as he passed the evasive Jedi. He continued his swing past his side and intercepted the weak swing behind him. Keeping the blades in contact he spun around and swung the swords wide.

Both men circled slowly, trying to form some sort of strategy. Jacen was eager to finally end his pursuit, yet at the same time cautious for all of Eran's tricks. Eran, on the other hand, would very willingly surrender himself over to the police that were slowly surrounding the pair than fight against this Jedi for a second time.

Jacen made the first move, not characterized as an attack, he simply started twirling his blade in front of his body, stepping in and out. Eran saw the routine as more than just the fancy display that the cops appreciated it as, and knew that the complex routine could lash out into a very effective attack or parry sequence. It did the former a few seconds later. Eran barely got his blade in position as the strikes came in low and high, from the right and left.

Sparks rained down on the asphalt surface as the two fighters moved in such a dizzying pattern that Jaina's eyes blurred over as she tried to pick out one fighter from the other. Eran realized that they had fallen into a rhythm that was very common to any trained fighter, except it was now being executed at an incredible rate of speed. Eran didn't like to be in any routine, knowing that while it didn't hurt him, it didn't give him the same kind of advantage that a chaotic fight did. Seeing an opening in the flurry, he decided to make his move.

Jacen sensed the opening as well and had learned from his mistakes on Coruscant. As Eran lifted his blade straight to block a high swing from Jacen, the Jedi was already tensing his legs to jump. Half way throughout the swing, Eran dropped into a crouch, and as his opponent's blade went over his head, he used his vertical weapon to swing at Jacen's exposed legs. The Jedi was already flipping forward over both the swipe and his opponent. As soon as Jacen's feet touched down behind the Imperial agent, he flipped back over Eran as the crouched fighter had anticipated the move and swung back behind him.

Jacen had played the move perfectly and swung down on Eran's prone figure as soon as he landed. With his blade behind him, Eran had to scramble to get it up for the parry and was off balance as Jacen lashed out under his attack with his foot. The Jedi's boot struck Eran solidly in the shoulder and sent the shorter fighter rolling backwards onto his back. Jacen scrambled on top of him, leveling his blade at Eran's chest. The Imperial agent was far from finished and swiped the offending sword side to side twice, rolling left as the deflected blade went right.

Eran scrambled to his feet, bringing his lightsaber up to his left expecting an attack. Jacen didn't come directly in, wanting his victory in the last scramble to settle in a while longer. The Jedi side-stepped slowly back in front of his opponent, glaring at him with a look that told the flustered agent that this was not the same fighter he had beaten in the palace. Eran began to sweat a little realizing that he no longer had any kind of advantage.

In a desperation move, Eran stepped forward quickly, swinging in from his left. Jacen recognized it immediately as one of Eran's fake attacks and made no initial move to block it, remembering how off balance he had become attempting to block the earlier phantom attacks. Eran hadn't intended on finishing the attack, but when Jacen offered no parry, he passed the point of no return. When it became apparent that the move was going to be completed, Jacen spun fast and hard to his left, sending the weak attack out wide. Eran's attack hadn't been an intentional one, and Jacen's violent parry sent his arm out to his left. Jacen spun completely around bringing his blade in from his left and Eran's exposed right. With no weapon in position to block the vicious attack, Eran dropped down into a crouch again and received a hard kick in the face, sending him back to ground.

Eran tried to roll backwards, but he had didn't have the momentum, and it looked more like an uncoordinated tumble. He tried desperately to get in position to block an expected attack, and his weapon was almost yanked out of his hand as he blocked Jacen's swing from his knees. Using the momentum from this parry he was able to roll away from his attacker and come to his feet. Jacen was on him in an instant with relentless blows that were easily parried, but forced Eran to stumble backwards.

Eran failed to notice the shadows on the ground and was completely startled when he backed solidly into a tree trunk. Thinking quickly, he rolled his back along the trunk, using the wooden pillar as a shield. Jacen's swing from the left dug three-quarters of the way into the trunk, with the remaining fourth of the tree's base saving Eran's life.

Jacen had full command now. The Jedi had always felt at home on Yavin IV, and while the few trees at the edge of the city park were no jungle, he faired much better than Eran, who tripped over every other root in his path as he back-peddled. Eran managed to get a tree in between the two of them and made a dart back towards the open area outside the park. Jacen used the Force to rip a large branch of a nearby tree and tossed it at the retreating fighter. The branch entwined itself between Eran's legs, and he went sprawling, his lightsaber skittering five meters away on the pavement.

Eran got his hands under him and as his feet started to move him forward, Jacen kicked them out from under him, flipping the prone figure over. Eran managed to get his hand on the branch Jacen had thrown, but Jacen blasted the pathetic weapon in half as Eran swung it while lying on his back. Jacen looped his weapon up high and poised it for a deathblow.

Jaina had watched the entire battle, and reflecting upon it later, she didn't think that Jacen would have actually killed Eran, but she never got a chance to find out for sure. Three stun bolts slammed into the Jedi's chest, as his weapon was poised over his head. Jacen's expression was frozen in shock. His arms went slack, and the lightsaber fell from his hand, deactivating automatically. His eyes were unfocussed as his legs began to fail, and he stumbled backwards until he made contacted with a tree and slumped into a sitting position.

Eran glanced up from his position on the ground, looking at the five policemen, all of whom had their weapons drawn and pointed at Jacen. He didn't bother to thank them for their action, but leaped up from the ground and made for the cover of the trees. "Freeze! Don't move!"

Yea right, Eran thought in response to the command. A few stun bolts peppered the ground around him, but he was weaving, and after pausing briefly to scoop up Jacen's fallen weapon, he was in the cover of the trees. Two men went in after him, but from her vantagepoint, Jaina knew that they had no chance of catching Eran.

Jaina ran over to her brother, retrieving the weapon that Eran had lost before the police could get their hands on it. "Step away, miss," she was ordered by the chief.

She turned on the man in charge. "What did you do that for?!"

The two other men were moving into flanking positions around Jacen who was still staring straight ahead, the stun bolts finally taking effect. "He is under arrest for attempted murder."

"What?! He wasn't going to kill him!"

"I'm sorry, miss, but I have four police witnesses and myself who will say different."

"But they were fighting, you can't-"

"His opponent no longer had a weapon, but was lying helpless on the ground. We have rules on this planet about such things. This wasn't self-defense. He will have to wait in jail until his case come to court."

"But do you know who he is?" Jaina asked, grasping at straws.

"Jedi or no Jedi, we have laws on this planet that apply to everyone. I will not make an exception in his case. I would be just as harsh on one of my one men if they were guilty."

Jaina thought for a moment about taking on the three remaining men. She had no doubt that she could take them down in about ten seconds without causing anyone of them bodily harm, but the people who had been removed from this street before were coming back and there were over a hundred witnesses.

As the two underlings put cuffs on their immobile prisoner, the two men who had gone after Eran came back, breathing heavily. "He got away," one of them said in between gasps. "He lost us in the crowd. We think that he slipped onto the monorail."

The chief turned to Jaina. "For what reason was this Jedi after him?"

"Jacen," she motioned toward her brother, "thought he had caused a fire back home." Jaina thought it best if she didn't say exactly where home was, not wanting to drag the Republic into this mess.

"Did you have any proof?"

"Not really," Jaina replied, realizing that after this story, there would be no way to get Jacen off legally, "Jacen was going on a hunch." She didn't bother bringing her own opinion that Eran was innocent into the conversation.

"Are you trying to tell me that this Jedi was willing to kill someone over suspected arson, and all he was going on was a hunch?" The chief almost laughed out loud, but his professionalism prevented it. He turned to the two out of breath officers. "Let him go. Most likely he's innocent anyway." He turned back to Jaina. "If you want to see your friend, he'll be staying in the luxury accommodations of the maximum security wing in the provincial prison."

Jaina just stood there, watching them carry her brother off to prison as twelve children crowded around her, begging her to do some kind of trick.

***

"Where is he?"

"He is still in the infirmary. There is nothing physically wrong with him. When we found him, his suit still had enough oxygen for another hour, but he's been in a shock-induced comma for over six hours. I thought you might be able to do something for him."

Anakin shrugged his shoulders and followed the doctor, willing to see what he could do. The medical section of the Calamarian cruiser had also been in the process of being remodeled, but with the hour layover that the engines had caused, Wedge had made sure that they had crammed as many medical supplies into the ship as possible. They were still far from being able to handle all of the people that needed help, but the fleet that had left initially would be arriving in about a day, and then the fleet that had been officially sent by the senate a few days later.

Anakin followed the doctor into a small room containing a bed, a patient, and one monitoring device that recorded solid life signs. The man appeared to be resting comfortably. "We gave him some muscle relaxants," the doctor explained. "We didn't know what the strain on his muscles would be if they remained tensed until he woke up. Plus, we couldn't stand staring into his open eyes."

Anakin moved to the side of the bed and knelt down next to the patient. The Jedi closed his eyes and placed his hand gently on the young man's temples. It took a while for Anakin to sort through all the jumbled images, but he was soon looking at a small space station. It was obvious to Anakin that he was seeing what this man had seen before the comma had occurred. There was another man behind a window, trying to communicate to him and pointing behind him. Anakin wanted to turn around to see what it was, but had to wait patiently as the spacesuited comma victim made the turn slowly.

Anakin made an audible gasp as he saw the asteroids streaming toward him. The next few images were jumbled as they happened so quickly, but the last few images seemed to occur in slow motion. An asteroid collided with the station, sending it into a slow spin. A few seconds later, it was pierced by a small rock. Anakin watched as the oxygen flooded out of the structure along with several pieces of furniture and some tools. As soon as the man who had been at the window came out of the hole in the station, the events slowed down to a near stand still. Anakin watched as the comma victim focused in on the doomed man's face as he tried to breathe in the vacuum that was pressurizing his body. Instead of breathing in, Anakin watched as the vacuum turned the man's lungs inside out. His cheeks inflated as his eyes bulged in their sockets. Anakin was about to break contact, to avoid the grizzly scene, but the picture froze, as it was the last image the young man had seen.

Anakin went to work, removing the last few scenes from the man's memory, attempting to soothe the mental connection between the man's brain and his senses. His mind had separated itself from reality in an effort to escape what his eyes were showing him, but as Anakin went to work, consciousness began to slowly creep back into the young man.

As Anakin opened his eyes, the patient on the bed began to stir. His eyes didn't open, but he curled up into a fetal position, trying to ward away the chill that the mental images Anakin had removed had left behind. "He'll sleep it off," Anakin said as he stood up. "When he wakes up, you might want to have someone here to talk to him. He's going to have a lot of questions and he'll need gentle answers."

****

Chapter 14 "Unclear Motives"

Luke walked into the room and was quite startled to see that Mara didn't notice. Luke was always surprised at the former assassin's skills of observation and awareness, but as he entered through the hotel door quietly, she kept her head buried in the data pad she was reading.

Luke cleared his throat to get a reaction, and Mara looked up quickly, just as surprised that she hadn't noticed his entrance as Luke had been. "Yes?" she asked.

"I was curious if you were going to bring your ship in for repairs or not. Didn't you say that you were going to get the hyperdrive overhauled?"

"Yea, something like that," Mara replied, not paying attention.

"That would mean we would have to change hotels, wouldn't it?" They were staying right across the street from the bank now, with Mara's ship docked in one of Snotzenexer's private bays. "The check-out time is right around the corner. If we stay for another hour then we'll have to pay for another full day. I thought you might want to move closer to the repair facility."

"There's no need," Mara said. "I managed to fit the overhaul bill into the payment for my shipment, and the bank is going to take care of it for me." Without elaborating further, Mara turned back to her data pad.

"So what are you reading?" Luke asked, trying to start some pleasant conversation. He had spent the past day wandering all over Iom, trying to find some method of renting a ship to scout the system and had failed.

"Oh, just some news reports from the past few weeks." Luke could tell that Mara wanted very much to elaborate, but was holding back, wanting Luke to ask the next question. It didn't happen. "I'm reading about, perhaps, the most intelligent man I've ever met."

"Really," Luke asked, "what does it say about me?"

Mara disregarded the comment. "I met with him yesterday for lunch, and I didn't realize what he has actually accomplished."

"Who is it?"

"The president of the bank. He only took over about a week ago but has already produced the highest earning totals the bank has ever seen. You should see some of the stock moves he's made. The news reports are up in arms about where he gets his information, but he always seems to be right on. This morning he made a stock move on a company that we talked about yesterday. I thought he was just striking up idle conversation, but it appears that he took my comments to heart and made a million-credit transaction. I find it amazing that the reporters are still criticizing each of his moves even though they always turn out to be profitable. You might have to worry about him though; he made a move against the Republic, which will likely be mimicked by others who follow his every move. This guy has the ability to make huge swings in the galactic stock market because everyone figures that he has the inside track, and they don't want to be left holding stock in a sinking company."

Mara kept on singing the man's praises, but Luke stopped listening. Something about what she was saying was really bothering him. He couldn't figure out if it was exactly what she had said, or his Jedi senses detecting something amiss. "What is his name?" Luke asked, interrupting her.

"It's uh," Mara looked at the pad, "President Snotzenexer," she read, not fully confident in her pronunciation.

Everything clicked in Luke's head at once: Imperial activity in this sector, the bank president making a move against the Republic, and the name. It was the same name of the commander of the Dark Fist who had attacked Yavin IV and had escaped from Hastrin. This couldn't possibly be a coincidence. The name didn't sound that common. Luke tried to think about who knew of him. As far as the Jedi knew, only he and Wedge had seen the report from the salvaged TIE computer.

Mara noticed the expression on Luke's face. "What is it? Do you know him?"

"I think I do, but I have to be sure."

"You can't just go and see him. I had to make an appointment a week in advance. I'm sure a man like him is booked solid. You need an appointment."

"Oh," Luke said, his facial expressions disagreeing with Mara's observation, "I think I'll manage."

***

"I'm sorry, sir," Alicsia, Snotzenexer's secretary said, "you need to have an appointment."

Luke looked around the bank's reception area, trying to look all of the security cameras full in the face. He had disguised himself as a young pilot yesterday, but now he wanted to be recognized for who he was. He figured it was the only way that he would be allowed to see Snotzenexer. "Can you at least tell him that I'm here?"

The young woman looked annoyed, but she gave in. She touched the earpiece she was wearing. "Sir, there is a Luke Skywalker here to see you. He doesn't have an appoi . . . Are you sure? . . . Yes, sir, right away." Alicsia looked at Luke with a disappointed expression. "The president can see you now. Just follow that hallway to the turbo lift at the end and take it to the top floor. I'll remove the security restraints for you."

"Thank you." Three minutes later, Luke was standing outside the door to the presidential office. He took a deep breath, calming his body and making sure that his lightsaber was hanging loosely from his belt under his cloak. The door opened, and Luke was more than a little startled to find that there was only one man in the room. Luke had expected there to be guards or storm troopers or something.

"Please come in," Snotzenexer said, rising from his chair. "It's not often that I get famous celebrities for guests. Would you like something to drink?"

When Luke heard him speak and saw his face, his memory instantly told him where he had seen Snotzenexer before. He had been the prosecutor at the kangaroo trial that Luke and Han had been subjected to back on Hastrin. There was no doubt that he was an Imperial officer now.

Snotzenexer, though, didn't seem to notice that his most powerful enemy had just walked in the door. "How about a fruit drink? It's still pretty early in the day for an alcoholic beverage."

Luke had taken a few steps into the room but was still standing rigidly, waiting for some hidden attack to come when Snotzenexer brought him his drink. With nothing better to do, Luke took the drink. "Where are my manners?" Snotzenexer said, appraising Luke's posture. "Please, have a seat."

Luke was very out of place during this whole encounter and followed the request, seating himself in front of the large desk. "Now, what can I do for you?" Snotzenexer asked, placing himself behind his own desk.

Luke decided that the best way to sort out this meeting was to play along. "Well, President Snot- or should I call you Commander?"

"Actually," Snotzenexer said, smiling, "I'm an admiral now, but president will do just fine."

"What are you doing?" The question sounded odd to both men, but Luke couldn't think of a better way to get things moving. "I mean, you don't expect me to believe that you are simply going to settle down here and forget about everything that happened in the Danzig system?"

"I don't see why not," Snotzenexer responded. "What happened between our governments is ancient history, as far as I'm concerned."

"You destroyed my Academy and killed several of my students!" Luke blurted out. "Do you expect me to just forget that?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about. More fruit drink?" Luke hadn't even touched his glass yet and was more than a little ruffled at this man's casual denial to the heinous crime. "Look, Skywalker," the president continued, "regardless of who commanded that attack, our governments were at war. You can't take revenge against me for things that happened during a war. If I recall, your people killed millions of Imperials at Danzig 359." Before Luke could counter with the expected comment, Snotzenexer jumped back in. "Don't even bring up that trial. That wasn't my idea. If I had been in command, I would have just executed you and Solo and be done with it. But all that is over now. We were at war, and you won. Now we can live in peace together, I hope."

"What about all of the stock moves you are making against the Republic?"

Snotzenexer smiled. "I see you've been talking to Miss Jade. I only sold stocks in one Republic affiliated company, the Borcance Hull Construction facility. I did so on a hunch that the Coellant Ore Refinery might withhold steel from your government after what happened in the Denorid system."

"What happened there?"

Snotzenexer chuckled to himself. "You really shouldn't be jumping to conclusions about things that you haven't properly researched. I assure you that I have no hidden agenda. Now what are YOU doing here? Please don't tell me that you came here to kill me, because I am very busy and can't afford any inconveniences."

What was Luke going to do? Either this man was telling the truth and he believed the war to be over, or he, as Mara had said, was the smartest man around and very good at hiding his motives - or both. Luke remained silent, taking the first sip from his glass. "Well if that is all, I'm glad I could clear up your worries, but like I said before, I'm busy and need to finish packing for a trip I'm taking. If you have any more questions, I'll be out of system for a while to clear up some business, but you can leave a message with my secretary, and I'll try to get back to you." Snotzenexer got up and offered his hand to the Jedi Master, and Luke, seeing nothing better to do, took it.

***

Luke sat in the bar, sipping his beverage, wondering what he could do next. If it was true that Snotzenexer had decided to leave the Republic alone, then what could Luke do about it? He was right, you couldn't very well hold anyone responsible for murder during a war. Luke himself had killed far more people in battle than Snotzenexer ever had. The reported Imperial activity in this sector was obviously the fleet that Snotzenexer had brought in with him, but it hadn't made any reported moves against anyone. At the same time, Luke really wanted to check it out to see for himself.

"That's impossible! There's no way anyone could ever get that high of a score!"

The shouts came from the corner of the large establishment. Luke looked over and saw several young pilots crowded around a machine. Luke was once again disguised with the Force, making himself look twenty years younger and wearing clothes that he had found in Mara's ship, left behind by one of her ex-copilots. If Luke wanted to get back into space, he would need to hook up with someone with a space ship. Luke downed the rest of his drink and walked over to the four young men.

As he approached, Luke could see that it was some type of video game. There was a helmet that the player wore as he sat in a mock cockpit. Luke didn't recognize the cockpit from any fighter he had ever seen. There was a screen on the outside of the cockpit where observers could watch the player's game. Right now the pilot who had just finished his tirade at the person who held the top score was about to throw the helmet across the room, but common sense caught up to him and he merely tossed it back into the seat.

Before Luke could make his greeting, one of the other pilots beat him to it. "Hey I know you?" Luke was more than startled. As far as he knew he looked like no one else in existence. "You came in two days ago with that hot number in the red ship."

Luke smiled at this pilot's reference to Mara as a "hot number." "My names Luke Dern," he said, offering his hand.

"Good for you," the young man responded, making no move to accept the offered appendage.

Luke shrank back from his social mistake. He wished he had grown up like Han so he knew how to act around these people. "What's the game?"

"Only the most unfair device in the known universe," the man who had just finished playing responded.

Luke read the side of the machine where it said, "The Ultimate Piloting Challenge." "Come one," Luke said, "it can't be that hard."

"Oh, no," the pilot said, his voice ringing with sarcasm, "it's just that someone scored more points than the Iom bank has credits. It's probably a fake name that the programmers put in just so no one would be able to beat the top score."

"Maybe you just lack the skill it takes," Luke responded, deciding the best way to talk to these guys was to assume the cocky-pilot attitude.

"And I suppose you have that talent?"

"Why don't you step aside and find out."

The complainer backed away from the machine, bowing slightly and gesturing his arm towards the cockpit. "Please be my guest, Luke Dern. Or should I say, Wedge Antilles."

Luke tried hard to hide his smile at his friend's apparent fame as he slipped into the seat. He inserted two credit chips into the machine and placed the helmet on his head. The machine was basically just a juiced up flight simulator. Something Luke had used numerous times before.

Mission 1: Death Star

Luke nearly fainted as he found himself in the council room on Yavin IV while Mon Mothma stood in front of a group of pilots giving instructions. Luke had heard it all before, and was surprised to find out how accurate it was. After a transition scene, showing the X-wings and Y-wings taking off from the moon, Luke saw the distantly familiar scene of the Death Star in front of him. Though it looked a little different in virtual reality, it was basically the same.

His com channel began to chatter away as TIE fighters came streaming in, and the squadron leaders began to organize an offensive. Luke reached out with his hands and grabbed the controls in front of him, testing the ship's responses. Luke spent a short while trying to protect his companions, until he remembered that this wasn't real. He managed to save a ship that he was sure had been Biggs' but he obviously couldn't be positive. 

After weaving his way through the mass of TIE fighters and X-wings, he and two wingmen approached the trench, only to have to turn away as five TIE's came screeching in. One of his wingmen bit it, while Luke took out two, as did his other wingman. Before the fifth TIE could make another attack run, Luke and his lone wingman dove into the trench. Luke set his targeting computer to get a fix on the exhaust port as he punched his accelerator to full throttle. His wingman declared his concern about Luke's speed, and the Jedi could almost here "Luke, at that speed are you sure you can pull out in time?" His wingman tried to mimic Luke's flight path, but the computer didn't simulate him with as much skill as Luke had, and the unfortunate computer player crashed into a protrusion of scaffolding.

Luke was just about to the port, his computer counting down the distance, when his sensors told him of three pursuers. Luke knew who they were without looking. "Hello, Dad," Luke said under his breath. Unfortunately, Luke didn't think that Han would be saving his butt this time. The trench wasn't much longer, and if he pulled out now, he would have to fly back down the length of the trench in order to get another lock. He hadn't needed a lock thirty years ago, and he surely didn't need one now.

As the advanced TIE behind him fired, Luke pulled his X-wing up and out of the trench, finding that the simulation gave the out of date ship way too much maneuverability. Luke was able to flip all the way around, coming back into the trench behind his former pursuers. Three quick bursts from his laser cannons evaporated Vader and his wingmen, and the X-wing shot through the explosions. The end of the trench was right in front of him with no time to get a lock. Luke closed his eyes, reached out into the computer programming, found the target, and fired. The X-wing pulled out of the trench mere meters before the end. As he flew away from the end of the trench, he could hear the scoffing of the pilots who were watching the view screen on the outside.

"There's no way he hit that."

A few seconds later the screen proclaimed a direct hit, which shut the observers up.

Mission 2: The Kessel Run

Luke read the mission briefing carefully. He had never been on the Kessel Run, but had heard plenty of stories. He had to carry his cargo through the Imperial blockade and then out run the TIE fighters in the Kessel Run.

Luke made it through the blockade with a little trouble, taking a few hits on his shields. His X-wing would have been toast, but the computer had given him a much more powerful freighter to fly on this mission. When they got to the Run, Luke spared nothing. There were four TIE's on his tail, but he had no intention of letting them keep pace with him. The maw loomed ominously near his course and Luke knew that in real life the black hole cluster was a chaotic mess of gravity wells, but he figured that the simulation would be a more systematic approach. Sure enough, Luke found by inspection that the edge of the cluster had a definite pattern to it, and by scouting out with the Force, he was able to skirt the edge of the maw while the computer made the TIE's follow a much safer route, falling way behind.

Luke could hear the pilots behind him chattering in awe. Luke couldn't help but feel proud of himself until he saw his score. The computer said he had done the Kessel Run in 12.75 parsecs. Han had done it in 12.

Mission 3: Beggar's Canyon

Luke was beginning to wonder who had programmed this game. The simulator changed into a swoop for this part of the challenge, and Luke saw that he had three fellow swoops racing with him. Luke was sure that he knew Beggar's Canyon better than almost anyone alive and was also sure he could easily defeat the three computer players. Luke started the race by taking an early lead in the beginning. In the upper right part of his view, the computer showed the suggested route to the finish line, but Luke knew of a few short cuts. As Luke turned down a very narrow canyon, he found that one of the three swoops had followed him. Luke didn't think it was fair that the computer wasn't following the suggested path, but then that was probably how it insured that it would win.

Luke also noticed that his swoop didn't have any weapons, but the one behind him was armed to the teeth. Almost as soon as he made his observation, the swoop behind him opened fire. Luke dove under a low, natural, stone bridge and watched it explode above him, as he shot by underneath, just ahead of the falling rock. His trail had to go above the bridge and lost precious time as Luke was able to take a narrow corner at the base of the canyon, while his follower had to go around a high out cropping.

Luke let up a little on the accelerator, allowing the swoop behind and above him to pull even. They were in a narrow canyon with plenty of irregularities in the walls, that made the path that the other two computer players were taking, much easier and safer. Luke pulled up level with his opponent, so they were flying abreast of each other. The upcoming gap wasn't big enough for the both of them, and the computer-controlled swoop began to push Luke out of the way, Luke pushed back, and both of them were on a collision course with the side of the canyon. At the last second, Luke shot up and over the narrow section of the canyon. The other swoop shot to the side with Luke no longer there to oppose his motion and crashed into the side of the canyon.

Luke had to slow way down in order to get back in the canyon and realized that he had lost precious time. He punched his throttle back to full as soon as he reentered the canyon and maneuvered the course like he had done so many times in his youth. He took a particularly sharp corner around a turn to cut down on time and found himself on a collision course with an unexpected outcropping half way through the turn. Luke was too startled to do anything about it and smashed into the rock, exploding into a fireball and ending his game. He was still speechless as the computer replayed his death from a third person point of view.

Luke slowly started to take off his helmet. "That outcropping doesn't exist!" he said finally.

"See, I told you that it cheats."

"No, I mean I've been there before. They had everything else right, but that piece of rock just doesn't exist."

Luke started to climb out of the machine, but one of the pilots stopped him. "Wow, man. You got a high score. You kicked my butt, maybe you beat that top guy."

Luke put his helmet back on and watched as the computer highlighted his game, showing him his kill ratio and average speed for each mission. Finally they listed the high scores, and Luke saw that he had accumulated over three and a half million, but was still only second place to someone who had scored close to ten million. Luke couldn't imagine anyone doing that much better than he had, seeing that all of the other scores were under a million. He was about to agree with the other pilot's observation that the top score was a made-up identity, until he looked at the name listed next to the score. "Jon Poncho," he read allowed. Out of curiosity he called up the details of the tall pilot's score. He had over twice as many kills as Luke had had during the Death Star run, had done the Kessel Run in 11.5 parsecs (Luke would have to tell Han that), and had finished the Beggar's Canyon run in a time that Luke had never achieved in his five years of flying back on Tatooine. It also gave details for the next five missions that Jon had finished, but Luke didn't understand the statistics since he hadn't played the missions. What interested Luke the most was the date on the game. The 185th member had put that score on the machine yesterday.

Luke stepped out of the game as another pilot scrambled to take his place, eager to try and mimic what the Jedi had just done. "That was incredible, Luke!" the pilot who had played before him said. "Too bad about that fake name on there, or else you would have the top score."

"I don't think it's a fake name," Luke replied.

"What do you mean?"

"I know a person by that name, and besides, the date next to the score says it was put on yesterday."

"Really, I was here yesterday. What does he look like?"

Luke could only think of one detail to describe the pilot. "He's really tall," Luke said, holding his hand a few dozen centimeters above his head. "He'd probably be hanging out with two other guys about the same height."

The pilot he was talking to began to nod slowly. "Yea, I saw them, didn't know they were pilots, but I saw them."

"Do you have any idea where I could find them?"

"I heard them talking about the hotel they were staying at. They were complaining about the beds being to short, or something."

"Do you know where this hotel is?"

The pilot gave the address. Luke thanked him and left the bar. Before he walked out he glanced over at the corner and saw a TIE had already killed the person who had jumped into the machine after Luke. "That's not what he did! Let me show you." Luke smiled to himself, realizing that they would dump an incredible amount of credits into that machine before they would get passed the Death Star.

***

Leia walked back from the main assembly chamber with something less than a hop in her step. She had been through several days of hell now, and things weren't looking up. They had appointed a special council to investigate the whole matter with the Denorid system, and she was sure they would find or make up something before the ten-day deadline. So far all they had on her was misuse of power and poor judgment. Leia she was sure that if she could get one of her supporters to act as her attorney, she would be able to show that with the information she had had at the time, she had made the right decision.

The problem was again with the former Imperials. They were trying to blow this whole thing into something much more than it was. This was the second day in a row that Leia had to listen to people accuse her of treason. She was one of the founding members of the Republic, and if it hadn't been for her, her brother, and husband there would be no Republic.

Leia was also having nightmares about the financial situation of the Republic. She had reoccurring dreams of a bank canceling credit to one of the worlds they were supporting. She could see everyone in the council accepting the news calmly, not understanding that the Republic didn't have one one-hundredth of the money to cover even the smallest lone that they had cosigned.

Leia sighed as the door to her apartment opened. Han and Lando were there, still working on what ever it was they were doing to try and fix the problem. Han had begun to explain it once, but Leia couldn't understand what he was saying and could also tell that Han hadn't really understood it when Lando had originally explained it. As long as they got results, Leia would be happy. With a small wave to her husband, Leia went into her room and collapsed on her bed, exhausted from the day's events.

***

Snotzenexer had just finished storing everything he was going to take with him to Coruscant in the back of his private shuttle. The ship had no Imperial markings on it so no one on Coruscant would think him a former member of the extinct government. He had appointed one of his captains to sit in his office while he was gone, which was the extent of the authority he had given him. He was allowed to occupy the chair while Snotzenexer was away, but he wasn't to make one move without Snotzenexer's explicit command.

Snotzenexer had received the three governors' "go-ahead" earlier that day. They had contacted Coruscant and had expressed a desire to join. They had also told the Republic representative that they were going to send a senator immediately.

There was still one thing that the admiral wanted to do before he left. Sitting in front of one of the bank's numerous holo-coms. He placed a call to one of the sister banks in which Snotzenexer had recently invested a considerable amount of money. A few moments later the bank secretary came on line. She recognized Snotzenexer immediately. "Good afternoon, sir, let me get the bank president for you."

A few seconds later an older man's face appeared on the screen. "Good afternoon, President Snotzenexer, how can I help you?"

"I'd like to inform you that I will be away from my position as president for a while. I just wanted to reiterate that I have invested a large amount of my resources in you and want to make sure you don't slip up." The man on the other end of the line didn't know what to make of this. It sounded like Snotzenexer was almost threatening him. "I won't be able to check the market for a while, and I want to make sure that all of my holdings are secure before I leave. Is my money secure with you?"

"Yes, sir," the other president said, managing not to let his voice crack. "You can count on us to accumulate only positive interest in the next quarter."

"Thank-you," Snotzenexer responded, "that is what I wanted to hear."

As Snotzenexer closed the connection, the other bank president, Jawell Overn, breathed a heavy sigh. He didn't need this kind of pressure. He watched the market closely and knew what kind of influence the president of the Iom bank had. His latest move was perhaps the most strategic of all. About seven hours ago, the Coellant Ore Refinery had put out a memo that they were no longer going to provide steel to the Republic. This had come at a time when the Republic was trying to grow and expand. Snotzenexer had sold his stock in the Borcance Hull Construction Yards the previous day, and now everyone knew why. President Overn had sold out of the Borcance Hull Construction Yards soon after Snotzenexer, as had a few other trusting investors. Now everyone was jumping ship, no pun intended, selling all the stock they could in each of the Republic's ship building facilities.

Overn had tracked down Snotzenexer's transaction and saw that he had reinvested his sold profits into a little known architectural company in the corporate sector. Overn had of course done likewise and labeled the company as a "hot stock" in the bank's newsletter. After the feverish investment in the almost unheard of company, they were now predicting record earnings for the upcoming year, nearly doubling any other year.

This was only one of many examples of the kind of power that Snotzenexer had. In normal circumstances, after the Republic underwent a crises, such as a shortage of resources, they would issue a memo stating that everything was under control and that everyone's investment's were secure. Usually they were right, but now, they didn't even have the opportunity to quell everyone's fears, as the Republic's stock had been dropped like a hot lowantnut.

President Snotzenexer had to be careful what he did from now on. Any little activity he engaged in might be interpreted as the result of some inside information, and what was really just an innocent stock trade, would be magnified by millions of investors, causing a crash that had the ability to bankrupt any company. President Overn knew this more than anyone. Being the president of one of the few banks that the Iom bank had interest in, he knew that if he ever lost Snotzenexer's confidence, and the powerful president sold, the ensuing landslide would bury him and his bank. On the other hand, Overn also knew that if Snotzenexer were to increase his holdings in the bank, the ensuing influx of money would make his bank the biggest in ten sectors. He had to be careful.

****

Chapter 15 "Insufficient Security"

In a nearby system to that of President Overn's galactic bank, a very small planet orbited an equally small sun. The planet's name was Xentin, and it was one of the smallest known inhabited planets. It had two main continents; one was very flat with rich, fertile plains, while the other one was very mountainous and rocky. For a small planet, it had a very large population and an economy that boasted in the fact that they required no imports but maintained a steady export. It was the mountainous region of the planet that made it famous. Because of the very low gravity on the planet, mining had become very successful. In most conditions, the hardest part of excavating a mountain was the inability of the machinery to handle the immense weight of the mountain into witch it was digging. On Xentin, the gravity was half that of most planets and the problem of weight was greatly diminished.

The ease in which the people of Xentin could mine would be pointless if they had nothing to dig up. The core of Xentin also boasted one of the hottest temperatures in the galaxy for its size. This huge temperature created enormous thermal, and therefore pressure, gradients in the mountainous region. This immense pressure created some of the finest diamonds, crystals, and other gems in the entire sector.

A small transport circled the planet until it was given clearance to land on the mountainous continent. The ship's trip though the atmosphere of the small planet was a short one, and it was soon resting serenely on its designated landing pad. A representative of the Mining Corporation of Xentin waited patiently as the gangway to the small ship lowered down onto the pad and then as a man walked slowly and carefully down the steep embankment. Twice, the man nearly toppled forward as he fought against the low gravity. He tried to use the two bags he was caring to balance himself but found that he was used to his foot falling faster than it was. He soon found that he walked best if he slammed his foot down with each step.

"Greetings," the native Xentinion said. The visitor looked up (and up) at his host. The man stood just under two and a half meters tall, and towered over the shorter guest. "My name is Yewijk, you must be the representative from the Varion Imperial Bank on Iom."

The guest put one of his bags down to shake the hand of his host. "My name is Loits. Interesting planet you have here," he added, hopping up and down a few times. His half-hearted leaps sent him almost a full meter into the air, and he managed to look over his tall host. The mountain range he was facing was magnificent.

Loits put both bags down and took a small stroll around the upraised platform to examine all the surroundings. The landing platform was only a hundred meters from the coastline and Loits marveled at the open sea. With the extreme curvature of this small world, the horizon seemed very small, giving him the appearance of incredible size.

The surf crashed into rocks down on the coast, and the ocean spray hung in the air much longer than normal, caring the salty smell all the way to the platform. There were several kilometers of flat, forested land before the mountain range started. The vast ridge spanned the entire continent north to south.

The mountains did more than just dominate the landscape - they defined it. The purple, snow-capped tops of several of the peaks disappeared into the clouds of the low ceiling, while the rest of the mountains made an impressive wall, cutting off the other half of the continent. The sight was so beautiful that Loits almost regretted the assignment Snotzenexer had given him.

Loits looked back at Yewijk and saw that he was offering him to circlets. "These are gravity anklets," the tall host said. "They should make it easier for you to walk in our low gravity."

Loits kind of liked the weightless feeling but realized that he would probably be better off with the weight compensators on. He took the devices, put them on, and then calibrated them for his comfort. Afterwards, walking seemed almost normal except that his arms didn't hang right. They seemed to feel more natural up and away from his body than hanging straight down. It was almost as if he had to exert a force to keep them down.

"If I understand correctly, you are here to make an appraisal of our operation to report back to your boss. Is that correct?"

As he spoke, Yewijk led Loits down the stairs from the raised platform, and the shorter man still had a lot of trouble going down the stairs. He found that even with the weights on his feet, he still moved forward faster than he fell down, and if he wasn't cautious, falling down was exactly what he'd be doing. "Yes, President Snotzenexer is always looking to expand the bank's holdings, and we understand that you are a relatively new operation."

As they talked, Yewijk led Loits toward a small air car parked near the landing pad. "We aren't actually new, but reborn. We had been in operation for close to a hundred years when twenty years ago we had a serious accident." The tall host motioned for Loits to enter the car. As he did, the visitor looked back toward the landing pad. He watched the top of his ship disappeared from view as the middle section of the platform lowered into the huge hangar below. The landing pad was actually built on top of the hangar. Inside there was a huge magnetic crane that would move his ship to a designated docking bay. It must be nice, Loits thought, to move heavy things like ships around as if they weighed nothing. A crane on any other planet would never be able to store ships like items on a shelf.

Loits slipped into the passenger seat of the air car and found that he had an enormous amount of legroom. The reason why became obvious as his tall host slid behind the wheel. "It has taken all these twenty years to get our funding back on line." The air car sped forward. When they reached about 100 kph, wings pivoted out from the side, and even at the slow speed, the car started to rise up into the air - yet another marvel of low gravity.

"What kind of accident?" Loits asked, trying to play the part of the concerned investor.

"In order to create diamonds and crystals, you need immense pressure to compress the carbon," Yewijk explained. "On most planets this pressure is created by the constant shifting of fault lines and continental plates. We aren't blessed with a lot of weight, so it would be next to impossible for us to get compressed carbon that way. Instead, the core of our planet creates an incredible amount of heat for its size. With the heat comes pressure, and with pressure comes crystals. Unfortunately, we can't have our torry biscuits and eat them too. The pressure also creates a danger factor. Twenty years ago we didn't understand the depth of that problem, and we had a volcanic explosion.

"An eruption in this type of atmosphere with low gravity is catastrophic, and it shut down the whole operation. It took us two entire years to clean up the mess, but we have learned our lesson. Now we have a special division of our operation that deals exclusively with measuring the heat and pressure gradients throughout the mountain range. The chances of another explosion are highly unlikely."

"But they are there?"

Yewijk smiled slightly, catching the humor in Loits voice. "Yes they are there, but your employer knows that every investment involves an element of risk. We like to tell investors the benefits far out way the risks. We have only been operating with adequate funds for about three years now and are still only about one third of our old size. So you can loose everything or triple your money, and there is about five thousand to one odds that it will be the latter."

"Why did it take so long for you to get back up and running again?"

"Once you have an accident, even though it was only one in a hundred years and now that it happened, it is over twice as unlikely to happen again, you still have to wait a long time to rebuild your credit. There wasn't a bank willing to back us with a consistent credit supply. We were operating on investors' money for most of the twenty years, and our production even then showed the banks that we could be trusted. It still took over sixteen years until the Galactic Bank of the Detsgor system granted us a credit line, and that was only because the Republic agreed to back us."

The air car was skimming over the trees now, and Loits could see a small city at the base of the mountains. "I'll drop you off at the hotel in which you'll be staying and then we can go take a short tour of the facility if you like. Tomorrow you are scheduled to meet with the executive board and receive our earning statements. Two days from now we can show you the full tour and answer any questions you might have."

"That sounds satisfactory," Loits agreed. The car cleared the trees and entered the clearing. As it did, Yewijk lowered it back to the ground, and retracted the wings. The trip to the hotel was brief, and Loits stopped only long enough to drop off his two bags and remove a few pieces of equipment.

When Loits came back to the car, Yewijk took special interest in the items he had with him. Loits noticed his glances and decided to explain. "President Snotzenexer wants a full report. That includes pictures," he hoisted the image replicator that hung around his neck, "and notes," he finished, pointing to the data pad and electronic scribe he had placed in his pocket.

"I'll warn you now," Yewijk said, "security is very tight at the mines. I'm sure you won't have a problem, but you will have to submit your devices to a scanner."

Loits shrugged as if he didn't mind, but inwardly he fretted the possibility that he would be found out. He just hoped that the Imperial technicians knew what they were doing when they had put his image replicator together, or else he was going to be left holding the bag. "If it's okay with you, since we only have time for a short tour, I'd like to see the main operation."

Tour groups weren't usually allowed in the main mines, but seeing as how the Varion Imperial Bank would be their biggest supporter if Snotzenexer signed on, Yewijk was sure he could make a few exceptions for the sake of impressing. "Sure, that should be no problem. Just to be sure, let me call ahead to see if they're going to do any blasting." Yewijk had a short conversation in which he learned that they were going to blast in three hours, giving Yewijk and Loits plenty of time to look around.

The air car flew up into the mountains, and Loits saw that they were headed to the tallest and most central peak in the chain. As they neared the mountain, Loits could see a few small buildings nestled in the valleys that surrounded the central mine. Instead of heading to the base camp, Yewijk steered the car towards a small cave opening in the side of the mountain. What had appeared to be a small opening from the distance, became a large landing platform leading into a cavern. Yewijk expertly set the small car down on the pad and the two passengers disembarked.

The air was crisp this high up in altitude, and Loits inhaled deeply before following Yewijk into the cave. As the tall guide had promised, there was a security station. Loits tried not to act nervous in the slightest as he surrendered his data pad and image replicator to be scanned. "This device has a powerful energy source inside," one of the extremely tall security personnel said almost instantly.

"It's the battery pack for the IR," Loits said innocently. He took the device from the security guard and ejected the battery. He held up the long, narrow, black box. "See, it's nothing out of the ordinary."

The security guard shrugged, and found nothing wrong with the data pad. Loits placed the image replicator back around his neck, and slipped the data pad into his back pocket. Yewijk didn't bother to offer an apology but tried to act embarrassed for Loits sake. The two men made their way to the end of the entry hall where a turbo lift waited to take them into the center of the mountain.

"I'll show you the operation from the bottom up," Yewijk said and pressed the last button on the lift. As the lift shot down, Loits felt the motion even more acutely than normal. The feeling of your stomach being left a few floors up was normal when gravity made it feel like you were falling slower than the lift, but when you actually were falling slower than the lift, the feeling was twice as bad.

The lift began to slow, and Loits actually thought that he felt his feet slam back into the floor of the lift. A few seconds later, all downward motion stopped and the doors opened at the bottom. The cavern that they entered was very dimly lit, and from the dust on the floor, Loits could see it was rarely visited. "This is the danger zone," Yewijk said. "You can feel the heat down here, and if you look over here at the end of this short corridor," Yewijk moved down the path a couple long steps, "you can see a large crack."

This was exactly what Loits wanted to see. He positioned himself between Yewijk and the crack, and bent over to take a picture. He lifted the IR to his face and snapped a picture of the wide crack, from which steam was rising. As Loits brought the device back down, he flipped a switch, ejecting the battery pack into his hand. Yewijk couldn't see the move because Loits' back was in the way. Palming the slender object, he reached his arm into the crack. He could feel the crack narrow and wedged the black box as deep as he could. The heat at the base of the crack was quite immense, and Loits' arm was moist from the steam when he removed it. "It's pretty warm down there," he said, looking at his guide with an immature grin.

Yewijk shook his head in disbelief, not wanting to accept the fact that this short man had to stick his arm in the crack to confirm the heat when the steam was rising visibly. "If you're done here, we can go up a few levels to where they are excavating new tunnels."

Both of the men made their way back to the lift and the door closed behind them. "Our scientists our working on ways to try and relieve the pressure beneath this mountain so we can go deeper than we are now, but it is a difficult project. I mean how can you leak the air out of a balloon without popping it?"

The doors opened again and the two men entered a much better lit area where there were actually other people working. Yewijk took Loits around the area, showing how they placed the explosive devices and how they ensured that the blast wouldn't crack the rock any deeper than they wanted.

The next few levels they visited contained the actual crystal harvest. Huge grinding machines bore away at the wall until a sensor on the machine detected a crystal. Then there was the painstaking process of chipping it out of the wall by hand. All of the harvesting layers were actually huge caverns because they had been ground away so much. Yewijk explained how careful they were to leave enough rock to keep the mountain standing. He also explained that in the future, after they had safely removed as much of the inside of the mountain as they could, they would be able to collapse the remaining rock, and start over.

Loits tried to remain interested in the entire process, but the truth was he wanted to leave as soon as possible. When Yewijk gave him the choice of continuing the tour or heading back toward the hotel, Loits tried not to sound too enthusiastic about ending the tour. The pair made their way to the air car, and the supposed financial investigator tried to remember to take a few photographs of the operation, keeping his actions inside his cover.

The two security men gave curious glances at Loits and his image replicator, wondering if it would be taboo to check him again. Loits breathed a sigh of relief as they past the men without incidence and gave them a friendly wave to hide his discomfort.

"They are going to blast in a half hour," Yewijk said suddenly, bringing Loits away from his encounter with the security guards. "I thought we would wait across the way," he pointed to a small plateau three kilometers away, "so you could witness the event. It would be a confidence builder for you if you could see that there is no danger of us ever puncturing the core of this world."

Loits didn't see any easy way out of this one. It was very proper suggestion that would be accepted by anyone else. He looked at the plateau, seeing the distance of the observation post as a safety measure and prayed that it would be far enough away for what he had planned. "That would be fine." He hoisted his image replicator. "Maybe I'll even take a picture of it for the boys back home."

The ride out to the observation station was uneventful, mostly due to the fact that Loits was too nervous to start any conversation. He had strict rules to follow. He was to activate the bomb under cover of a blast. He was also supposed to take the very first opportunity made open to him, time not being on the Empire's side.

Ever since Yewijk had told him when the blast was coming, Loits was constantly glancing at his wrist chrono, counting down the minutes and then seconds until the blast. There was a small hut erected on the plateau where tourist groups could wait during blasts and where small little trinkets were sold. As zero-time approached, Loits took a deep sigh and raised his image replicator. His index finger searched out the shutter trigger while his thumb flipped off the detonation safety. Loits mentally counted down under five seconds, closed his eyes, pretended to bring his device into focus and depressed the button.

Just like a small hole in a space vessel can tear a gash the entire length of a bulkhead, the explosion in the base of the mining facility ripped a hole in the ground two kilometers long. The accident twenty years ago had been just that, an accident. It was a miscalculation that had released too much pressure in the inner construction of the cave, causing a large section to crumble and crack the base of the mountain. The result was a single explosion no more powerful than an ordinary volcano. Now the explosion was due to a deliberate terrorist attack in the most sensitive section of the mountain. This explosion was, as a result, much bigger than it had been before. There would be no recovery this time.

Loits and Yewijk were thrown violently from their feet, the low gravity seemingly forgotten. Loits watched in terror from his propped-up sitting position as a huge wall of fire rose up before them like a giant lava tidal wave. The gravity was suddenly realized as Loits watched the debris flying toward their observation post in freakish slow motion. Loits had finally convinced his subconscious that he would be safe moments before the explosion. He had been gravely mistaken.

The wall of lava was only four hundred meters high and came pathetically short of the observation post, but the entire mountain had also been blown into the air, and numerous rocks rained down on the plateau, shredding everything. Loits didn't live long enough to signal Snotzenexer that the job had been completed, and he wouldn't receive the five hundred thousand credits that had been promised him on completion of the job. The last thought that went through his head before a seven-ton rock removed it was that at least he wouldn't be caught and tried for terrorism.

The explosion rocked the entire continent and even caused some minor tidal waves in the nearby ocean. All of the mining operations had been built up around the main mine, growing outward in a spiraling fashion. Therefore, all of the mining operations were either destroyed or rendered unusable for an indefinite time. Lava swept its way through the valleys, washing away anything that stood in its path. Practically all of the mines were flooded full and then hardened over. Thousands of people died in the mountains, and severe earthquakes rocked the few towns that skirted the range and ash showers fell several meters deep. This was definitely the end of the Mining Cooperation of Xentin, and the accident came only a few days before the next pay period on their bank loan.

***

Police Chief Zornik stared long and hard at his visitor. The young woman was talking to the two guards standing at the entrance to the station, and the chief took the time to sit up straight on his stool behind the raised desk and make sure there weren't any cake crumbs on his uniform. The woman was apparently done with the guards and made her way over to the main desk. Zornik seemed hypnotized by her graceful walk, as her mini skirt did nothing to hide her long, high-heeled legs. She was wearing a white, soft blouse covered by a business vest. Her brown hair was done in a loose bun, with a few strands of springy, curled hair hanging tantalizingly over her forehead and ears. She was carrying a small vinyl briefcase and had a definite professional look about her.

"What can I do for you Miss?" the chief asked when she got close.

The woman pretended not to notice that she was being looked at much in the same way that a vornsker would eye up a nerf steak. "You must be Chief Zornik." The woman extended her hand. The chief nearly vaulted off the stool, his gut pressing firmly against the desk as he reached for her hand, eager to touch some part of her body. "My name is Catheroll Lonnen. I'm a reporter for the Provincial Review." Catheroll realized that while she was talking to his face, his eyes were focused a little lower and starting to glaze over. Trying to get command of the situation, she squeezed her handshake a little too tightly. "I understand that you have taken a Jedi as a prisoner."

Zornik felt his hand being crushed, and was yanked out of his fantasy as he pulled free of the handshake. He looked down at the still extended hand, wondering how the finely manicured fingers could have produced such a grip. Catheroll repeated her question. She wasn't dressed like she was to try and remain unnoticed, yet at the same time, she couldn't have police chief talking to her chest and legs throughout the entire visit either.

"Uh, yea, we did," Zornik respond to the second phrasing of the question. He managed to compose himself and looked Catheroll in the face as he continued talking. He was glad to find that she was just as attractive above the neck as she was below. "As a matter of fact we did. We are holding him on a charge of attempted murder."

Catheroll was glad to see that she had managed to regain his attention while still maintaining a slight infatuation. "That must be pretty dangerous," she tried to make her voice sound as naive and innocent as possible. "I mean aren't Jedi supposed to be extremely powerful? How did you manage to apprehend him, much less imprison him?"

Zornick was truly wishing he had been in on the capture, but he could still brag for those who were. "We are professionals, Miss Lonnen. We can handle Jedi. They are not as powerful as they have been reported to be."

"Or at least not in comparison to you," Catheroll helped the inept chief brag. "I would very much like to hear of how you captured him and, if possible, see where you are holding him."

"Well," the chief wavered, "we are holding him in maximum-security," Catheroll cocked her head to the side with a child-like expression, "but," she shifted her briefcase so she was holding it with both hands behind her waist, pulling her blouse tight, "I'm sure we can make an acceptation this once."

Zornik made his way from behind his desk and led the reporter to the door in the back of the main entry room. As he punched in the security code, he began recounting the story of Jacen's capture. Catheroll was sure most of it was made up, in fact she knew it was. She already knew exactly what had happened, but was impressed by what this police chief expected her to believe. The trip was short, and they didn't pass anything of interest on the way to the maximum-security section.

"The Jedi is our only prisoner in maximum security at the moment, so you don't have to worry about any unsavory types. Lots of times we have some real psychos down here, and they don't always treat women very well."

Catheroll tried to act relieved, but instead had to choke back laughter. If the chief only realized how ironic that statement was. The big man obviously didn't realize how his eyes were treating her, and undoubtedly every other attractive woman that walked into the police station, or he might feel the need to speak differently.

The security guard on duty at the entrance to the maximum-security division was much younger than the chief and very close to Catheroll's age. To give him credit, he remained professional throughout their encounter. "Sir, where are you going?"

"I am taking Miss Lonnen to see our prisoner."

"That's against regulations, sir."

"Don't worry, sergeant, she's been cleared. Besides, she is with me. Open the door."

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders with the idea he was no longer responsible, having said his scripted piece. The door in front of them opened, and Catheroll was presented with a very white, clean, short hallway. The hallway was made of thick permacrete and contained four cells on the left, with a blank wall on the right.

"The Jedi is in the last cell."

"Do you know his name?"

"I believe it's Jacen," the chief remembered correctly.

Catheroll looked at the cells as she passed them on the right. Each room was three meters square with four-meter ceilings. There was no visible door and only a small slit looking into the cell through a thick wall. From the small viewing slit, Catheroll thought she saw a simple cot and a waste hole in the middle of the floor. When they arrived in front of Jacen's cell, they saw that the Jedi appeared to be sleeping.

"Wake up! You have a visitor."

The chief's voice boomed in the small hallway, and Jacen rolled over on his cot reluctantly. Suddenly he sat up straight, looking around his cell like an excited animal. All four of the white walls stared back at him without answer. He finally located the slit in the wall and saw the reason for his arousal. "Jaina!"

"Catheroll" was happy that her brother recognized her instantly, but was a little disappointed that he hadn't also seen her obvious disguise. "Jaina," she responded, thinking fast. She turned to Zornik, "It is a greeting in my home world's ancient language. Apparently he recognizes me as a Yavinite," Jaina said, hoping that the chief hadn't heard of the gas giant with four moons.

"Oh," he said in response to her explanation, and then to Jacen, "speak Basic."

Jacen scolded himself for his mental slip, but quickly recovered. "I'm sorry. What can I do for you Miss . . ."

"Lonnen. Catheroll Lonnen. You can call me Cathy." The chief looked hurt that he hadn't received the nickname that his lovely companion had just given to his prisoner. "I was wondering what you are doing on Aldertain?" The questions were meaningless. The twins were actually conversing much faster and more efficiently through telepathy. She asked him how he was being treated and where the door to his cell was. He told her fine, and that there was a door in the ceiling that they had lowered him through. The door was uniquely locked, and he could feel an enormous weight above it.

They continued the questions, both verbal and mental for about three minutes. When the Q and A session was finished, Jaina turned to Zornik. "What kind of security measures to you use to keep a powerful person like him locked up?"

"There is only one way in or out of the cells, and that is through the ceiling. The doors are locked from the outside and are covered with a large durasteel slab. All of the walls of the cell, accept the front one, are a meter thick. There are cameras in each cell and three out here in the hallway." Jaina looked around, but couldn't see any of the security monitoring devices. "Trust me," Zornik said, witnessing her fruitless search, "they're there."

Jaina thought for a while, communicated mentally with Jacen, and then expressed her desire to leave. "Thank-you chief. I'll be sure to include high praise for your facility in my article. I think the people have nothing to worry about with you looking after their safety."

Back in his cell, Jacen was almost doubling over with laughter at his sister's phony act. The police chief led his companion back to the front desk and realized that she was about to leave. Jaina could see the man was desperate for some way to keep her there longer, but was coming up short. "Uh, are you doing anything for dinner tonight? I mean, if you want, I could give you a more detailed description of the whole process we plan to take with trying and convicting this Jedi."

Jaina smiled back at the large man, while inside she was squirming with revulsion. The man was at least twenty years older than she was. "You know, I'm busy tonight, but tomorrow night looks free."

The chief nearly fainted at Jaina's acceptance of his proposal. Little did he know that she planned on leaving the planet well before tomorrow morning. "I know a really good restaurant."

"I'll call you, okay?"

The police chief just nodded his head. Jaina gave him a wave, turned toward the outside doors, and walked away from the still stunned police chief.

***

The night was full of motion. The wind blew rather unpleasantly through the trees, ripping off leaves that had lost their grip due to the lateness of the season. Rain came down in sheets, accompanied by the occasional click of a hailstone on the pavement. Air cars were traveling far too fast for the inclement conditions, but the safer speeds that were suggested for a storm meant that any potential traveler would have to stay outside far too long for most people's liking. There was no one dumb enough to be outside on foot - well, almost no one.

Jaina crouched behind the thick tree trunk, looking at the outside shape of the police station. She had long ago gave up in her effort to keep herself dry in the weather. It was a safe guess that she wasn't going to be able to multi-task her Force ability in these extreme conditions. She wished she had a little more strength in the nature aspects of the Force like Jacen.

Although Jacen would be more than helpless in quieting this storm, he would probably be able to keep them drier than she had been able to. As it was, her black, flight-tech jumper hung heavily from her body, with her under shirt clinging very uncomfortably to her body. The jumper was supposed to be waterproof, protecting against the coolant and oil spills common around a tech shop, but she was sure that the thick material had never been tested in these conditions. She would have to remember to make a stink to her grease monkey friends back home about the junk they had sold her.

Despite the fact that she weighed a good twenty pounds heavier due to the water logged jumper, there were still obvious advantages to the outfit. The black suit made her almost totally invisible, and with a little help from the Force she was sure that she would remain unseen if she so desired. Though she was wet, she felt nearly no wind through the thick material and the few hailstones that fell around bounced harmlessly off her. The two enormous pockets on her hip each contained a lightsaber.

Jaina made a quick check of the road that ran between her and the station, saw no immediate traffic, and ran through the storm toward the large building that held her brother. She had hoped to enter through the front doors, but because of the storm, the guards were more alert than their normally lethargic state. Instead, she circled around to the side of the building where she had earlier scouted out an alternative entry point. The building was a squat two stories with modest security. They had never had much trouble with prisoners escaping, and therefore didn't go out of their way to spend extra money on unnecessary security measures. Jaina saw a few motion detectors and security cameras, but neither was very accurate in this weather, and she knew how to get around such devices.

A Force added leap brought her up to the roof and she quickly made her way to an old service door. As she approached the small protrusion on the roof, she withdrew her lightsaber from her right pocket. As she ignited her weapon, and the invisible blade failed to light up the night, she shuddered a little as memories flooded back to her. When she had been an assassin for the Empire on Hastrin, the Imperials had altered her lightsaber by shifting the formerly purple blade outside of the visible spectrum. The result was a slightly weaker weapon, but that was its only drawback. Even though every time she used it, she remembered all of the awful things she had done with it, it was still far too useful to change back.

She took a swipe at the two security locks on the door, and the ancient durasteel pads fell away to the rooftop. Jaina deactivated her invisi-blade but kept it in her hand as she slowly turned the knob on the old-fashioned door in front of her, not knowing what to except on the other side.

The room behind the door was full of wiring and hoses controlling the heating and air-conditioning systems throughout the building. Jaina didn't bother examining the circuitry that swarmed the walls around her, confident that the engineers who designed the station wouldn't have been foolish enough to put sensitive, security equipment in such a volatile and easily accessible location. As she stood there searching for the stairway down, she noticed that she was making a considerable puddle on the floor. She took off the jump suit, having no more need for the black uniform. Holding the jumper in her hands away from her body, she was startled how heavy it actually was when the weight wasn't distributed over her entire body. She quickly hid the jumper underneath a large dehumidifier where she was sure it wouldn't be found for a while. Looking at the tracks she was still making on the floor, she removed her boots and socks as well.

She almost left Jacen and her lightsabers in the discarded pile of clothes, but retrieved it before she continued her search for an exit. She was now barefoot with a white tank top and mid-length pants. Her legs had managed to stay relatively dry, as she had been hunched over most of the time she had been outside, but her top was soaked. She thought for a moment about removing it too, not caring too much about modesty and realizing that the wet, white material didn't really provide that much privacy anyway. Instead, she removed it momentarily, wrung it out a few times over a wet spot on the floor, and put it back on. Now it was wet, see-though, and wrinkled but was no longer dripping.

The floor was cold to her bare feet as she scampered around, finally finding the stairwell down. As she descended the steep steps, she kept her ears keen, listening for anything that might have become alerted to her presence. There was a door at the bottom of the stairs, and when it didn't open automatically, she realized that she was going to have to do something with her brother's lightsaber. Since she had rid herself of her jumper, she had lost all her pockets. Standing in front of the door with both hands full, she wished that her pants had some type of pouch or that she had worn her utility belt. Instead, she tucked her brother's weapon into her pant's waistband in the back. Feeling the instability in the set up, she pulled the pants' drawstrings tight in an attempt to make sure that both the lightsaber and her pants stayed where they were supposed to be.

She pressed the keypad at the side of the door with her now free left hand, and the door slid open in front of her. She found herself standing in the back of the station's kitchen. There were a few service droids shut down in the corner of the kitchen, obviously recharging for the night. Jaina knew that often times these types of droids had security systems in them to detect excessive noise and she made her way as quietly as possible across the linoleum floor.

The next room was the mess hall, and Jaina froze when she saw a security guard sitting at the end of one of the four tables. The lighting in the station was very dim due to the fact the only illumination came from the occasional security glow rods positioned over each door. It took Jaina a few moments to see that the form sitting at the table was in fact slumped on the table. He had apparently not wanted the midnight snack that sat beside him as much as the nap he was now taking. Jaina spent a few moments in concentration, ensuring that the light snooze that was occupying the man would keep him busy the rest of the night.

Jaina walked slowly through the halls of the building, not really sure where she was. She had told Jacen to stay awake so she could find him easier, and while she could feel his presence and in what direction he was, the hallways didn't always lead in that direction. Jaina had avoided opening any doors not knowing what kind of security the station had connected to them. She had been able to sense and defeat each security camera that she had passed thus far, but that was only because she had a lot of practice dealing with such devices and she knew how they worked. She had no idea what would happen if she opened a door that was supposed to remain closed.

Jaina finally made it to the end of the hallway and had been everywhere that open doors could lead her. She was now standing in front of a door that she was sure led her towards her brother. The Jedi took a deep breath and opened the door. The door slid aside and revealed a groggy looking security guard.

Bearn had had a rough night. He usually liked to sleep in between his patrols, but the steady pounding of the wind and rain against the lobby doors had stolen that comfort from him. Serves me right, he said to himself, they don't pay me to sleep. The only comfort he found was in thinking about the attractive reporter who had visited the station earlier that day. Her long legs kept walking through his mind, and as he started his hourly patrol of the station, he was more than a little surprised to find his dream woman standing half-naked and soaking wet behind the first door he opened. He thought that the image was just a result of not getting enough sleep until his fantasy lashed out with her leg, kicking him solidly in the chest.

Bearn gave out a startled yelp as he stumbled backwards and tripped onto his back. The other security guard, Killeroy, who was stationed in the lobby permanently, could sleep through the worst storm but slowly woke up as the noise from the encounter reached him.

Bearn was coming out of his sleepy state quickly. He saw that his opponent was holding something in her right hand, and in the darkness, the guard couldn't see exactly what it was, but wasn't willing to bet it wasn't a blaster. Bearn reached for his holstered weapon, still lying on his back. He heard a snap his from in front of him and wasted no time, firing at point blank range. Bearn watched in amazement when his bolt angled away from Jaina with a spark as the fake reporter twisted her wrist slightly. Struggling up into a sitting position, Bearn brought his gun up for another try, but Jaina's invisi-blade cut it out of his hand. A split second later, she lashed out with her foot, connecting solidly under the prone guard's chin, nearly flipping him over backwards and sending him into a peaceful slumber in which his fantasy reporter was sure to be less violent.

By this time, Killeroy had come to his senses and had his gun trained on the still distant Jedi. "Don't move! If you so much as flinch, I'll blow you in two." Jaina watched him slowly reach for a communicator. She couldn't afford that yet and made a full charge at the guard who was standing behind the front desk. Killeroy considered this to be a little more than a flinch, brought his hand back to his gun, and fired.

Jaina didn't even slow as she deflected the shot, and the startled guard wasn't able to compose himself for another shot. Jaina knocked the extended blaster out of his grasp with her weapon and cut viciously into the desk against which Killeroy was leaning. A huge section of the fine wood fell away, and Killeroy toppled on top of it. He lay face down at Jaina's feet and started to roll over when she aided his turn with a kick to the head.

After checking that he wasn't seriously hurt, Jaina left the unconscious man to look behind the desk. She quickly located the security camera controls, and in a few seconds had the recorded past half-hour playing over the broadcast. Now who ever was watching would be looking into the past with no idea of what was happening presently.

Jaina knew where to go now and made her way to the door that Chief Zornik had led her through earlier that day. She ran down the hall and paused as she approached the entry to the maximum-security hall. A quick Force check let her know that the guard on duty was sleeping. She didn't have the time to put him under for good, but simply let him be as she worked on the security pad in front of the door.

Electronic codes had never been a problem for Jaina, especially now when she had seen the young guard who had been on duty that day punch in the numbers. The door slid open and Jaina stepped into the short cell area. She didn't bother walking down to her brother's cell, but composed herself as she began to hide Jacen's presence to the security cameras. She pulled the lightsaber from her back and tossed it down the hallway. She watched it slow its flight as it approached the last cell and then float smoothly through the slit, disappearing from sight. A few seconds later, an audible snap-hiss could be heard and then the amazing sight of Jacen attacking his cell wall. Within a couple moments, Jacen had cut a sufficient doorway for himself and was walking toward his sister.

"Dressed for the occasion, I see."

"Can it," she replied, and both of them knew that the conversation could wait till later. Jacen had kept his original clothes, minus his cloak and belt and was attired in a forest green shirt with a pair of loose black pants. He still held his ignited lightsaber in his hand and waited patiently as Jaina used the security code to get them back out of the hallway and stepped through the door. She was met in the hall by five security guards with weapons firing. Jaina barely got her weapon up in time to deflect the unexpected attack, and didn't get all of them. Two shots ricocheted of her invisi-blade, one hit the wall next to her head, while the other two hit her in the thigh and skimmed her side. Jaina leaped back through the open door just before the second volley came, ripping apart the wall where she had just stood.

Jacen grabbed his wounded sister and tried to steady her. Jaina could hardly put any weight on her wounded leg and was quite surprised when Jacen threw her to the floor and spun around with his weapon raised. Jaina watched as the blank permacrete wall right in front of her brother emitted two quick blaster bolts. Jacen deflected the bolts expertly and attacked the wall. Instead of the powder explosion that was normal when you attacked a permacrete wall with a lightsaber, Jaina heard the tinkling of glassine, a shout, and then silence. She quickly saw that there had been a window there that was covered with a permacrete hologram so the guard on duty could look into the cell hall without being seen. As Jacen stepped back to Jaina, she could see the guard slumped in his chair with a bloody forehead, but no permanent damage.

"We better get out of here quick," Jacen said.

Jaina felt too much pain to formulate a sentence but motioned to the door that had just closed and would likely be the entryway for the five guards who were coming down the hall. Jacen hit the control pad with the tip of his saber and reduced the pad to a sparking fire hazard.

Jaina tried to rise but found that her leg was seriously hurt and whimpered loudly as she crumpled back to the floor. Jacen didn't have any time for healing now, but picked his sister up gingerly, suspending her over his shoulder. He began to walk back to his cell, but paused in thought. He wondered if they kept the huge slabs of durasteel over the unoccupied cells. He walked to the cell that had been next to his and began to cut a doorway.

"Jacen," Jaina squeaked, "they're coming."

Jacen turned slightly and saw that the disabled door was taking a punishment from the opposite side while a few clever guards had moved to the on duty post and began firing through the broken window. Jacen couldn't both, block fire, and cut into the cell at the same time. He turned toward the fire and let Jaina finish the monotonous labor. When Jaina finished, Jacen backed slowly into the cell until the guards at the window no longer had an angle to fire. He gently set Jaina down and tossed his weapon at the door in the ceiling. The lightsaber cut through the lock and as the unlatched door swung open, an impressive waterfall came down with it. After all the standing water that had been on the roof drained, the downpour receded to that of just the outside rain.

The twins heard the door in the main hall blow in and the pounding of feet. Jacen grabbed his sister, hugged her to his chest, and jumped up through the hole in the ceiling right before the guards rounded the corner. One of the five guards walked slowly into the cell until the rain was just falling in front of him. He looked up at the high door, not believing everything he had just seen. The two Jedi had blocked countless blaster bolts, shredded the thick cell walls and leapt a height of four meters. The guard just shook his head slowly. This was the first and would be the last breakout in the prison's history.

****

Chapter 16 "Revealing Encounters"

The sun shone brightly on Gensifery. The tropical planet had suffered mass destruction as a result of Imperial bombing in the days leading up to the battle at Danzig 359. Though the bombardment had left the surface of the planet severely scarred, it had only affected one hemisphere. It was on the other side of the planet that the sun was now shining, the relief efforts across the globe taking the night off for a well-deserved rest.

"Here is your drink, sir." The young woman walked over to the seated man and placed his drink on the short table next to him. She was dressed in a conservative, blue, two-piece swimsuit with an aqua sash tied around her waist.

"Thank-you dear," the man said, his hand quickly catching hers as she set the glass down. She felt the strong grip and looked at the face of her customer. "You should really sit down and enjoy this view with me."

"I'm sorry," the woman said, "but I have other people to wait on." She tugged earnestly at her secured wrist, and he released her.

"Maybe after your shift is over."

"Perhaps," she said with a tone that told anyone who was listening that she wouldn't give the offer one second of thought. She walked back to the bar quickly, and the man took a long swig from his drink as he admired her flustered form. He sighed audibly and extended his legs onto the padded footrest that stood in front of his chair. He surveyed his surroundings, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of the oceanfront.

Gensifery's belt of islands a little north of the equator boasted the most tropical coastline for many light years in any direction. The plethora of beautiful people scampering on the beaches could keep any sightseer busy for hours, without even noticing the surroundings in which the beautiful people scampered. The water was a clear blue in the shallow regions, reflecting the immaculate sky above. The beach was a perfectly bleached white that turned into tall shade trees, which leaned toward the water as if they were put there for the sole purpose of having people relax beneath them. As you moved further from the coast you ran into civilization, but the boardwalks did their best to leave the natural beauty of the setting as unspoiled as possible. If you got too far away from the water, you ran into towering hotels and expensive restaurants. It was on the back edge of a large patio of such a restaurant that the man now relaxed.

The traffic of people walked along the boardwalk a meter below the man's elevated position and he tried not to imagine how they'd look through the scope on his sniper rifle. He'd been out of the business for a while now. Ever since the Republic had relaxed the grip the Empire had maintained on the businesses of the galaxy, there had become less need to operate outside the law to make a profit. With less crime, people made fewer enemies. With less personal grudges, no one hired hit men to take out the enemies they didn't have.

The man sighed, glad that the lack of work didn't mean poverty. He had stored away enough credits in various locations to last the rest of his life and several generations after him - not that he planned on having kids. Although . . . He tried to look for the pretty young drink girl, but his eyes met someone else walking toward him. The man - young man - had a confident swagger about him and seemed cool and relaxed despite the fact that he was wearing a dark, blue, cotton shirt, long, black pants, and a black robe in the hot sun.

Alarm bells began ringing in the seated man's mind, but he had no way to make any move whether offensive or defensive, so he decided to let this man make the first move. There was virtually no one in the entire galaxy that knew what he looked like outside of his occupational attire, so revenge wasn't a concern. The dark clad new-comer walked to the left side of the seated man, making sure that the bright sun was directly behind his head as he stood above his target.

"Have a seat young man. Surely you have had a hot day so far?"

"You are Robobart Fettern."

It was more a statement than a question. Fettern did his best not to squint at this knowledgeable youth who stood before him. He thought of several answers, but none of them seemed appropriate.

"You are to come with me."

"Who-" but Fettern stopped as he noticed the cylinder hanging from his visitor's belt for the first time. The black handled weapon was nicely camouflaged against his pants. "Who are you?"

"My name is Trince Alinter, Jedi Knight."

"And what does your master want with me," Fett asked, thinking that he already knew the answer.

"Master Skywalker has no need for revenge, Boba Fett, but if he had," Trince tapped his lightsaber, "only half of you would still be sitting there."

"Don't tell me that you are in need of my services, because I'm retired, son."

"My employer has told me to contact you, bring you back to my ship, and then make contact with him."

"And if I resist?" Trince didn't answer the stupid question, both of them knowing the answer. Maybe if Fett had his armor and multitude of weapons he would be able to stand up against the Jedi, but only then for a few moments. "May I at least know who your employer is? Have we met before?"

"Yes, I believe you have. On your last meeting I think you gave him a COLD shoulder."

Han Solo, Fett thought, great!

***

The shuttle put down gently on the Coruscant landing pad. All marks that had been imperial had been removed, and now all the emblems proclaimed the ship to belong to the Varion Imperial Bank. Snotzenexer walked down the inclined ramp of the ship, looking at the skyline of the city planet for the first time in his life. Senator Belsiphvin was there to great him and she beamed with her hand forward as she walked toward him.

"Welcome Senator Snotzenexer, I have been eager to meet you. I must say that you have made quite a name for yourself, and we are currently in need of men like yourself who can see profitable ways out of tight situations."

Snotzenexer took the hand of the pretty senator. "First you must consider whether the situation is only tight because you are trying to fit too much into it. Often the best course of action is regression. Forging ahead into the unknown is foolish when the outcome is unpredictable."

Snotzenexer's belongings were being unloaded and routed to his apartment, allowing him to walk with Belsiphvin as she led him into the palace and towards the adjoining Senate chambers. "I don't think I understand."

"This government has moved very quickly in the past few years," Snotzenexer explained. "You have moved down the tunnel of your destiny without bothering to check to see if the light at the end was a beacon or a super nova. Right now you are suffering from, as you said, 'a tight spot.' It seems that your tunnel is collapsing when actually, you are simply growing too fast. You need to take a step back, slow down, and maybe even decide on a wider tunnel before continuing."

Belsiphvin laughed lightly. "Is there no end to your picturesque speech?"

"If a picture is worth a thousand words, then picturesque speech has to be the most efficient way to communicate."

The pair moved through the halls of the senate chambers, Belsiphvin introducing the Imperial Admiral to each senator they met. After a five-minute trip, "Here is your office. You'll find that there is a schedule for your orientation meetings, a list of the committee's that we believe would fit best into your expertise, although you are free to choose from any, and already a listing of senators that would like to meet with you. I must admit that we have never had a new member that so many people were interested in before."

***

Three hours later Snotzenexer was standing in front of the special investigating council. He had spent the time since Belsiphvin had dropped him off contacting as many people as he could, trying to find out exactly who was running the show and how things were progressing with the case against Leia. To be blunt, Snotzenexer was very disappointed with the council's pathetic ability to gather evidence against Leia. They could have at least tried to make something up.

"Good afternoon, Senator Snotzenexer, how can we help you?" Senator Quenthor had spoken, and Snotzenexer looked at the man, trying to discover if his limited research on the man's career had been accurate. It had been. The man had such a false sense of strength about him that it was almost comical. This was the man who was heading the investigation. He was a former Imperial Captain, and Snotzenexer was glad that the word "former" was in that title.

"I was wondering how the investigation against President Organa-Solo was coming? If I am going to serve in this government I want to know under whom I will be positioned."

"So far we have little but a history of bad decisions and actions that go beyond the scope of the president's allotted power."

"I'm afraid that those sound more like findings whose interpretation is opinion based as opposed to factual. They probably won't stand up in a trial, or even go to trial, Captain."

Snotzenexer's negative comments coupled with the reference to Quenthor's title had the desired result. Having the truth of what the senator already knew driven home by Snotzenexer's intelligent analysis put the Captain off balance. The reference to his military career made him do a double take, and he tried to cope with the situation by reevaluating the man who stood in front of him. Snotzenexer's posture was impeccable and his feet were at the perfect pose of attention. "You a military man?"

Snotzenexer nodded his head. "I was."

"My curiosity begs to know what rank a man of your intelligence could gain before retiring to a civilian lifestyle."

"Though modesty should permit my revelation, I was an Admiral."

Quenthor nodded in appreciation, though figured Snotzenexer to have been a member of a two-credit army. "May I ask the government with which you were affiliated?"

"I regret to say that it was the same Imperial Navy with which you ended your career."

Quenthor was truly shocked now. Imperial admirals were rather rare especially ones that had managed to retire of their own free will as opposed to having the frailty of life force it upon them. As much as he was impressed, he was puzzled at Snotzenexer's choice of words. "You regret?"

"I regret only that we were both forced to end our careers because of the lack of leadership in the Empire. I would have liked to still be in command of my Super Star Destroyer, but it is not so. If only our superiors had seen further into the future, not wasting all their efforts on pointless ego building missions, we might still be employed. I only hope that in the near future when the galaxy is looking for another leader that we do not miss our chance by appointing someone who is too narrow minded to restore the former glory."

Snotzenexer's words were as close to treasonous as were likely to be spoken on the whole of Coruscant, but Quenthor ate them up like a starving rancor. "If only that time should arise. As it looks now, we might have to suffer through a few more years of narrow-minded rule before Organa-Solo can be removed. She hides her actions far too well."

"But that is why I'm here," Snotzenexer said, pulling a data chip from his pocket. "I don't suppose you have a recording of the transmission that took place between the president and the Denorian representative?"

"Those exchanges are not recorded for political reasons," Quenthor said though he figured Snotzenexer already knew that.

"What would you say if I told you the Denorians broadcast on an unsecured channel, and an ambitious news station had intercepted the exchange?"

Quenthor separated himself from the rest of the special council and walked toward the admiral, eager to grab the data chip out of Snotzenexer's upraised hand. "I would say that it might perhaps quicken the coming of the time of which we earlier spoke." Snotzenexer handed Quenthor the chip. "That is, if the recording shines a negative light on the current president?"

"You might be surprised," Snotzenexer replied. You might be even more surprised how little I had to doctor the recording, Snotzenexer decided not to say aloud. "Just remember that when the time comes for someone to pick up the pieces that Organa-Solo has left behind, it would be a shame to appoint someone who is just as careless at dropping things."

Quenthor understood. He didn't really know why he understood but was just satisfied that he did. Snotzenexer would never drop anything.

***

The light blinking on Snotzenexer's console when he returned to his office told him that he already had a message despite only arriving a few hours ago. He walked over to the screen set in the wall and hit the play button. He was a little startled to see the face of his wife before him. "Hello dear. I hope you are settled in nicely. I seem to be having a little trouble with a fox prowling around in our yard." Snotzenexer interpreted their code word for Skywalker. "He seems rather intent on the rock pile." He's looking in the asteroid field. "He also seems to have three pesky crow friends who follow him everywhere. They gave us trouble before, if you remember?" Bird friends? Fighters? They gave us trouble before. The three ace pilots who had accompanied the Falcon at Danzig 359. "I was wondering if they were worth the trouble to catch, or if I should just hire an exterminator? Hope this doesn't come at a bad time. Hope to hear from you soon."

Snotzenexer was sure that Skywalker hadn't completely fallen for the lies he had given him back on Iom, but Snotzenexer didn't want to take anything for granted. The admiral had a plan that he wanted to follow and it definitely involved having Skywalker as an enemy. If the Jedi Master was a little curious as to the true intentions of the fleet still stationed in the Varion system, Snotzenexer thought it best not to leave Skywalker hanging.

The senator pressed the reply button, declined the live transmission, and waited for the beep to inform him to start recording. "Don't worry about bothering me dear, it's always a pleasure to here your voice. About the fox, there is no use killing him, you know how our neighbors would react to that. But make sure you let him know that he isn't wanted in our backyard. As for the crows, I believe we have a friend who specializes in falconry. Perhaps we should just let them fight it out. Who knows, it might be fun to watch. Hope to talk to you again soon."

***

"Well, what do you think?"

Luke Skywalker looked long and hard at the huge Super Star Destroyer in front of him. His senses were telling him that he was looking at the same ship that had destroyed his academy and had escaped from Danzig 359, but he had to prove it explicitly. The Jedi Master turned to Vince, who had spoken. "We need to make it send out a signal on a wide band frequency so we can check its transponder codes with the ones I recovered from the crashed TIE we found on Yavin IV."

"In order to check the codes," Bep piped in, "you'll need to make the ship send a coded message. If it just tells us to get lost, it won't use the code."

Luke looked at the three pilots in front of him. He knew what Bep was getting at. The 185th wanted to start some trouble. He couldn't blame the pilots. They were the best fighter pilots in the fleet and had worked hard to become so. After the battle at Danzig 359 it appeared that the war was over, and that put them out of a job. Now it looked like the Empire was still alive and kicking. Not only alive, but also strong. At the same time, if what Snotzenexer had said was true, these ships were simply hiding because they didn't want to be mistaken for hostile. Luke realized that no one ever truly wiped out an opponent. They had won the war against the Empire, but there were still Imperials, and even though they weren't going to fight anymore, that didn't mean the Empire had to destroy all of their surviving ships.

At the same time, Luke had this sinking feeling that these ships were waiting for something. Snotzenexer hadn't told him the entire truth. Luke could tell that the admiral had been lying to him, but was hard to tell how much and what had been a lie. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding the fleet's existence, Luke still felt that he needed to know if this was the same ship that had attacked his academy. "Okay," Luke said finally, "go out there and get their attention, but remember, we aren't at war with these guys anymore. Just get them annoyed at you. From what I remember of your fighters, they don't have any distinguishing marks that would identify you as part of the Republic fleet. Just act like a bunch of cocky pilots who happened to stumble upon a fleet hiding in the asteroid belt."

"Will do, Master," Jon said, giving a cocky salute. The three tall youths disappeared from the crowded cockpit, leaving Luke to look at the ships in front of him. They had spent the last few days searching the asteroid belt. It wasn't exactly a small field, spanning a large orbital pattern around the Varion sun. It had been hard for the sensors to pick up the metal of the ships amongst all the ore-rich asteroids, but Luke had been able to pick up the life signs of a few patrolling TIE's, and the Jedi had been able to follow them to the main cluster of ships. Luke counted about thirty Star Destroyers, with the one Super class sticking out as the most prominent member of the starry landscape.

Luke looked at the closed circuit camera that monitored the small flight bay of the modified carrier. Vince, Bep, and Jon were in the process of boarding their unique ships. Luke sighed, hoping that this little encounter wouldn't have the opposite effect that they wanted. All he wanted was the Super Star Destroyer to send out some kind of coded message to the rest of the ships. Whether that message was to ignore the three fighters or to attack them, Luke just needed the message. He was confident that the 185th members could get out of there fast enough to avoid any type of severe conflict.

***

Sanson looked at the sensor display on the armrest of her command chair at the back of the Dark Fist's bridge. The sensors had spotted the modified carrier as soon as it had micro-jumped to the asteroid behind which it was now hiding. As three small fighters emerged from behind the rock, Sanson smiled to herself, realizing that her visitors wanted to have some fun.

Admiral Sanson had received information from her scouts that the ship had been scouring the asteroid belt for the past two days. It hadn't taking much tracking to find out that Luke and the three young aces were flying the carrier. She now had information on what to do with the trespassers, so she had uncloaked and had her TIE fighters on stand-by. The admiral reached for the com switch on her chair. "Lieutenant Leonce."

"Yes," the intercom responded.

"We have three incoming fighters that have an ETA of two minutes. These are the fighters that we talked about earlier. Am I safe in believing that you know what to do?"

"You are, sir."

Sanson closed the connection, feeling that no more needed to be said.

***

Ward Leonce exhaled slowly. He had been training on the new modified TIE's for the past month. He had also been put in command of training the rest of his clone brothers. They had only been training for about two weeks, but, like him, his brothers had been quick to pick it up, and most of them already had flight experience.

"All right men," he shouted to the group of ten pilots that had been chosen for this mission, "it's time to go. I want all of you in space in two minutes. Let's go!"

The crowd of identical faces moved in a well-practiced routine, boarding their TIE's and activating the preflight engine start up. One by one, the ships left the hangar, and the Lieutenant was the last ship out of the bay.

Back on the bridge, Admiral Sanson sent an order to the rest of her fleet to move into flanking positions and set up an interdiction field.

***

A light on the communications console lit blue to tell Luke that the modified carrier was receiving a coded message. Luke had already programmed the security passwords into the computer and therefore not only got confirmation as to the identity of the Super Star Destroyer, but was also able to read the transmission.

"Guys," Luke said over the private com channel to the three fighters, "I got confirmation, now get out of there. The other Star Destroyers are moving in to enclose your position."

***

Out in space, the members of the 185th were three quarters of the way to the Dark Fist when Luke's message came through. They hadn't needed the command because their on board sensors had already detected the encircling tactics of the much larger battle ships, not to mention, also telling them that eleven TIE fighters were bearing down on them with incredible speed.

"Mission accomplished fellas," Vince said over the com, "let's send it back home before these guys decide that they want to play."

All three ships pulled up into a vertical one-eighty degree turn and punched the accelerator, retaining their cruising speed that had only seconds ago been propelling them in the opposite direction. "Question," Jon announced, "why haven't our solar paneled friends contacted us?"

"What do you mean?" Vince asked back.

"I mean, isn't it protocol to tell us that we are trespassing in restricted space before they send the cavalry out to get us?"

"I agree," Bep put in.

"Regardless," Vince rationalized, "we'll out run them in a coup-" he was cut off as a rear explosion rocked his ship. "What?!" Vince's rear shields were now in the red after a direct from a torpedo. "My sensors didn't detect a lock!"

"That's because they fired without one," Bep said. He and Jon had each gone into evasive maneuvers as soon as they saw Vince get hit. Not a full second after their movement, two torpedoes sped through the space that the ships had just evacuated. Vince was now too taking evasive measures, but his ship was feeling slightly sluggish as his generator tried to restore the power that had been expelled to repel the torpedo attack.

"We need to micro jump out of here."

"What are you talking about, Vince?" Jon asked. "There's only eleven of them, besides they attacked us without provocation."

"Vince is right," Bep put in, "Skywalker said he didn't want us to get involved in a battle. We're supposed to be at peace here."

"But they attacked us!"

"Sending the jump coordinates now," Vince said, ignoring Jon's pleas. Each of them continued their strategic evasion, making sure that each of their ships were pointing toward the asteroid that their carrier was hiding behind as the nav com countdown reached zero. Each of their engines made a fast revving noise, screamed in protest, and then clunked out.

The three fighters hung listless in space for a few seconds before laser fire from behind them brought the pilots back to their senses. "What happened?" Bep screamed.

"There must be some kind of interdiction field surrounding us. It looks like we are going to have to confront them."

"Can't we out run them still?"

"These guys are far too close," Bep said. "Even if we do out run them, they will have our backsides to shoot at for far too long."

"Right," Vince agreed. "Go through them, but don't fire. I'll see if we can't get out of this yet."

All three W-Wings turned about and flew directly at the swarm of ships that opposed them. The scattering of TIE's seemed far too organized to Vince. He was used to seeing the pod ships stumble about when they scattered, sometimes crashing into each other in their haste. As he passed the nearest of the ships, he noticed that these weren't the TIE's he was used to seeing. They seemed to have severe modifications done to their engines as well as attachments to their solar panels that looked suspiciously like shield modulators.

"Vince," Bep said over the com as they passed through, "are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"These aren't your typical TIE fighters," Vince concurred. As both groups of fighters turned about to face each other again, Vince took the time to try and resolve the situation peacefully. "This is Vince Trimpo," he said over the com, making sure it was tuned to all frequencies, "there seems to be a small misunderstanding. We didn't mean to trespass. We were just curious. If we can go now, I can assure you we won't make the same mistake again." Vince's response was an incessant beeping from his flight computer, telling him that three of the TIE's had obtained a missile lock on him and that two more were trying.

Bep and Jon, were also being locked onto, and suddenly all eleven TIE's fired at the three ships. The pilots had a warning this time and were able to avoid initial contact, but the missiles circled around for another pass. The W-Wings turned their attention to the offensive projectiles, and in a few moments each of the eleven torpedoes were evaporated. Vince had been correctly identified as the leader of the three-some and had been forced to avoid five of the torpedoes, while his companions had shared the remaining six. Vince hoped that their impressive display of skill would help convince the TIE's that they weren't novice pilots and avoiding a fight was in everyone's best interest. It had the opposite effect.

The eleven ships came screaming toward the three W-Wings, spewing fire that cascaded off the strong shields of the custom made crafts, but it wasn't a punishment that they could take for long. "Okay, we fight," Vince finally said, getting fed up with their situation.

Jon had already begun his offensive, not waiting for Vince's approval. He sent his ship into a tight pursuit of two TIE's, preparing to trade fire for fire. Quite unexpectedly, the two broke formation, forcing Jon to choose one or the other. Usually the stupid Imperial pilots would fly in formations of three, thinking that big groups increased the strength of their small fighters, when in actuality, they only made them easier targets. Jon fired a stray shot at the one turning left, and veered right, staying close to the other ship.

The pursued TIE began a sharp climb that Jon followed, the centrifugal force pushing him back in his seat. Suddenly the TIE spun around and changed directions by one hundred eighty degrees. Jon was so surprised at the impossible maneuver, that he didn't pull his ship out of the tight, arced climb, and as the TIE flew in an opposite, tangential path to his climb, Jon's W-wing's under side was exposed. The TIE sent several blasts into the weak under-shielding, rocking the fighter severely and sending it spinning.

Jon's pride was injured instantly. He had never been hit so hard in his life, and he had flown on countless missions. To his credit he recovered quickly and was able to pick out the offending TIE in the swarm of fighting that surrounded him. The ship was diving up and down corkscrewing left and right, but all the skill in the galaxy wasn't going to get him out of Jon's sights. Jon depressed his trigger and watched as he led the speedy fighter just right. The two laser beams landed solidly on the back of the TIE, and it shook violently, ending its corkscrew.

"Shields?" gasped Jon. "On a TIE?"

Shields or no shields, the young pilot refused to let this TIE out of his sight. The TIE was only slightly wounded, but its maneuvers came a little slower now. It turned itself up into the same curved climb it had done before, but pulled out ninety degrees into it, continuing in a tangential path, only to then turn ninety degrees to left.

Jon was watching the strategy of severe turns and dives, knowing that the Imperial pilot was setting him up for something. The TIE made another very sharp turn, this time, reversing his momentum before the move, tying to get Jon to shoot past him. Jon was on top of it though, and hit the brakes well before he got to the almost stationary TIE. Thinking his trail to have flown past him, the TIE pilot continued his turn, heading off in the way he had come. Jon watched as the doomed craft turned directly into his sights. He pressed the triggers again, this time not letting up. The first two blasts shook the small fighter, as the second and third pairs robbed the ship off all its shield, allowing the fourth and final pair of laser bolts the pleasure of destruction in the form of a subdued fireball.

Jon was so pleased with himself at his success that he failed to notice that in the process of slowing down to avoid the TIE's feeble attempt at trickery, he had become a near stationary target for the rest of the TIE's who had been following him. His W-wing convulsed unnaturally as it was fired upon from three different directions. Jon quickly retained his normal combat speed, trying to evade his new enemies.

The other two members of the three-man fighter squad were having similar difficulties. Vince and Bep could get off one or two shots on their opponents but never enough to deplete the shields fully. At the same time they were trying to zero in on one target they had to evade four others.

Luke saw the struggle from his hiding place, but also realized that he couldn't do too much. The dog fighting was taking place just outside the bulk of the asteroid belt, with Luke hiding right on the edge of the field. He wanted to join into the fight, knowing that the three pilots had equipped this carrier with a very powerful weapons system, but he also knew that the large, bulky ship had terrible mobility. Luke watched a pair of TIE's sticking to Vince's tail not falling for any of the pilot's expertly executed dives or spins. Vince's ship was taking a beating. Luke moved the carrier from behind the huge rock and creeped toward the battle, giving him a clear view of the deadly chase between Vince and his tails. Luke closed his eyes and reached out for the weapon controls. He could see the fight through the Force, and as he reached out to the two trailing TIE's, he fired. The powerful turbo laser lanced out from the carrier and quite miraculously dipped down at the last second as the two TIE's did a drop spin to counter a move Vince made. The blast tore through both ships as if they were made of paper.

All four Republic members had forgotten about the Star Destroyers in their concern over the vastly improved TIE's, and now that the carrier had decided to enter the fray, the larger Imperial ships felt that they too should join the action. Four ion cannon blasts from the surrounding Star Destroyers hit the carrier at once, shorting out all the systems and throwing Luke away from the console as the control panel in front of him exploded in an array of sparks.

As soon as the attack had taken place, the TIE's broke off their attack and headed back to the Super Star Destroyer. Vince had just figured out where the life saving shot had come from when he also noticed the Star Destroyer's reaction. He now also realized that he and his friends were surrounded by terrible odds.

"Guys, it looks like we'r-"

"Tractor beam!" Jon yelled, interrupting Vince's comment.

Vince didn't respond, feeling the telltale jolt in his craft as a beam locked onto his ship right after Jon had spoken. He then felt another and another lock on. "They're not taking any chances," Vince said.

"At least we still have our weapons," Jon said. No sooner were the words out of his mouth then a shower of ion fire rained upon them. Five seconds later all three ships were floating listlessly in space. The tractor beams had released after the ion cannons had done their job.

"Nothing like tying someone up to shoot them," Bep mumbled into the helmet com.

"At least they want us alive."

"Yea," Jon said, "but where do they want us?"

As if to answer the pilot's question, the Super Star Destroyer moved into the ring that the smaller ships had created around the fighters. The huge ship loomed over the three fighters, and Vince noticed that their carrier with Luke inside was also being tractored underneath the enormous ship. The huge bay doors on the under side of the ship opened slowly and all four ships were pulled inside. The doors were closed beneath the new arrivals, and the ships came to rest on the closed hatch.

Vince, Bep, and Jon looked at each other through their cockpit canopies, and shrugged. They had been inside a Star Destroyer's hangar before, but then they had been on the offensive with their ships in prime condition. It had also not been a Super Star Destroyer.

Luke was also curious as to what was going to happen now. He didn't know if the Imperials knew whom they had captured, but he really wondered what was going to happen when they realized that they had reeled in a Jedi Master. He and the 185th had killed three TIE's, but the Imperials had definitely initiated the attack, even if the three fighters had been trespassing. All four ships were oriented in the same direction and could see the main entrance to the hangar. Luke watched as a woman walked into the hangar, flanked by two solders. Storm trooper armor was absent in the room and all the officers and solders were decked out in black pants and mid-length gray shirts. Luke could tell by his Force augmented vision that the woman had a rank of admiral.

Women did not rise to any type of rank in the old Empire. Luke began remembering what Snotzenexer had told him. The Empire had changed. Maybe when they found out they had captured a very important member of the Republic they would apologize and let them go. Luke watched the woman's slow determined approach. Yeah, right, Luke thought in response to his earlier thought. She knows exactly what she has done. They had been taken alive, which meant imprisonment. Luke couldn't feel any ysalamiri present, which was good news for once.

The 185th members also watched the approach of Admiral Sanson, wondering what kind of execution they were going to get. Sanson paused as she neared the ships. She looked at the two different makes between the large carrier and the smaller fighters. Sanson knew what these fighters had done in the past to TIE fighters and had watched the prowess of the fighters and pilots from the battle that had just taken place. She was a mechanic at heart, always basing her battle strategies on the technology of her own ships and of her adversaries'. These three fighters and even the carrier might prove very useful in advancing the fighting capability of her fleet.

Admiral Sanson walked slowly in between the fighters, making both her own officers and the four men in their ships, wait for her orders just a bit longer. She looked with great interest at the engine compartment of the W-wings, noticing how they were installed directly in line with the weapon system. The shield generator also drew off of the engine department. The torpedo bay was slung beneath the main fuselage and the swept forward cockpit gave the pilots very good vision in battle. It was a perfect design, combining the strengths of the X-wing and the E-wing into one ship, and then attaining the mobility of an A-wing.

Sanson turned from her examination of the ships and spotted her second in command, Commander Pearson. "Commander, open these ships."

"Yes, Sir." As Pearson directed traffic, Sanson moved away from amongst the ships, letting the men do their work. Huge magnetic cranes that were suspended from the ceiling came down to lift up the ships. None of the pilons in the electronically shorted out ships had activated, so the Imperial techs attached electronic actuators to the landing gear, and soon all four ships were resting well balanced on their pilons.

Next the techs worked on the hatch to the carrier. Two men attached the electronic actuators while ten soldiers leveled their blaster rifles at the hatch door. Pearson gave a signal and the techs activated the hatch. As the door lowered, each of the soldiers cocked their weapon. The ramp-way into the ship was empty, and after a brief pause, Sanson watched as the men filed into the ship two at a time. A short while later, they returned with Luke Skywalker in toe. He was shackled with his hands behind his back. One of the officers was holding his lightsaber and gave it to Pearson. Pearson nodded at the man, and the rest of the crew ran over to work on the W-wings. Person led Luke over to Sanson while several soldiers always kept their weapon trained on the Jedi Master.

Sanson had told Pearson who this man was, but she didn't know if the soldiers knew. She scoffed inwardly at the power the five men with riffles felt that they had over the prisoner. She knew that he could easily wipe out five time their number, all armed with blasters. At the same time, she realized that Luke was pretty much powerless against all of the officers present, and it would only be a lesson in futility if he tried to fight against each of the one hundred men in the room. If Sanson knew anything about Jedi, she knew that they valued human life far too highly to take on such a pointless venture.

The three fighter pilots weren't a tenth as able as the Jedi in combat, but they seemed that fraction inverted as willing to fight. Sanson laughed at the irony of the situation as one of her officers was forced to slam the youngest member of the squadron in the back of the head with his riffle to put him into submission. The three pilots were cuffed and brought to stand next to Luke.

"Do you know who we are?" the one who had been hit shouted at the admiral.

"Shut up, Jon," the tallest of the three pilots said.

Sanson looked up at the three youths in front of her - up and up. They were not your typical fighter pilots and she knew that if they were going to be of any use to her, she would have to do some serious work with them. She looked each on of them in the eye, trying to get them to back down. She had little success, but stopped on Jon, who was still squirming slightly. "Do you know who I am?" she asked, but used the tone of voice to which only fools responded. "I am the admiral of this ship and this fleet. I can have all of you executed at the snap of my fingers. I think I deserve an answer as to why you four find it necessary to trespass in restricted space." As she said this last statement, she turned her attention to Luke, who was more at her eye level and, as any ignorant observer could tell, was holding up to this sudden imprisonment the best of the four.

Luke looked back at her, and his facial muscles didn't twitch once as his mind worked out the puzzle of the admiral in front of him. "You know exactly who I am, don't you," Luke finally said. "You know who I am, and then obviously why I came here. You have also answered my question."

"That being . . ." Sanson asked, not showing any anger at Luke's cavalier response.

"What is the Empire's political position after the incident at Dansig 359? Do they still want war with the Republic, or are they willing to surrender once and for all, sparing the rest of the galaxy a lot of unnecessary war and hardship? Basically, do you still want to rule the universe?"

Sanson turned away from the Jedi Master and walked a few paces with her hands clasped behind her back before she turned and responded. "I don't know if it is so much that we want to rule the universe as it is that the universe needs someone other than your sister at the helm, and we just happen to be the best people for the job."

Vince, Bep, and Jon finally realized what the two of them were talking about when Sanson made the casual reference to Leia. This admiral did know that she had captured Luke Skywalker, and the Empire was planning another attack of sorts on the Republic.

"I don't think that if it came down to a vote, the galaxy would decide to put you back in charge, regardless of what Leia does."

Sanson laughed out loud, showing the officers around her that their commander did have a sense of humor, much in disagreement with the current rumors that had been circling the ship. "I understand that you have met President Snotzenexer. What did you think of him?"

"He is a very clever man who has a knack for making people believe what he wants them to believe. But he is in over his head. There is no way you or he will be able to revolt against the Republic with what you have hidden away in this asteroid field."

"Do you know where President Snotzenexer is now?" Luke didn't answer. "I'll give you a hint. Right now your sister calls him Senator. I believe that it will come down to a vote, and frankly, I'll be quite surprised if the galaxy doesn't elect us back into power."

Luke was frozen in shock. He had talked with Mara, and she had told him that Leia was having some severe trouble with the senate and that there was a formal investigation underway to depose her. If Snotzenexer was there, pushing the investigation along with the sole purpose of taking over when Leia went out, then the Republic was in real danger. Luke looked around the hangar, evaluating for the first time what his chances of survival were if he tried to escape. He decided upon "not good." Not only did he have to worry about over a hundred armed Imperials, he was responsible for the lives of the three pilots he had dragged into this mess.

Sanson saw his flirtive looks around the large room. "Don't worry, we'll lock you up nice and tight. We've been preparing a cell for quite some time." She looked at the three pilots. "You three will be a pain in the neck for a while, I imagine, but we'll soon see how useful you are to us alive." Sanson turned away from the prisoners and nodded to Commander Pearson. Pearson in turn motioned to three officers who stood in front of the prisoners. They lifted their weapons and fired. Vince, Bep, and Jon just flinched, but Luke was preparing to redirect any beam that came their way. The guns didn't produce a beam, but a very unblockable stun ray that encompassed the whole group of four, knocking them into blackness.

****

Chapter 17 "Know Thine Enemy"

The lightning lit up the sky, tracing its jagged finger across the black cloud background. The wind whipped across the barren ground searching for a grain of sand or a loose pebble to toss around, but the surface was composed of one solid rock. Despite the lack of rubble, the surface was anything but smooth. Huge canyons and shear cliffs were distributed with a generous hand all about the landscape.

The woman stood on the highest peek of the chaotic surface, her hair the wind's to do with as it pleased. She wore a thin shift against the elements but didn't notice the temperature. The sharp, rocky ground beneath her should have cut her feet, but she hardly noticed. The air had no moisture at all which only seemed to make the lightning storm feel more eerie. The view of the setting was the only thing that caused her any discomfort, sending a deep chill down her spine. Whether she was wearing a Hoth environment suit or her simple nightgown, she would have felt the same chill.

Suddenly she was no longer on the highest peek, as if the vision had thought she had had enough of the view, fully understood where she was, and it was time to move on. She was now looking up at a ledge that towered above her. Lightning struck the pointed peek, extending down from the sky in slow motion, as if to burn the image in her mind. The explosion wasn't one of light but of darkness, eliminating the triangular summit.

The woman found herself thrown to the ground, suddenly aware of her surroundings. The rock cut into her hands and feet as she tried to scamper backwards away from the globe of darkness that had been placed on the excavated ledge. The wind was suddenly very cold and caused her arms and legs to shake violently as she occasionally lost her balance and fell to the ground, letting the rock cut through her thin chemise and into her legs. Scrambling backwards on her hands and feet, her eyes stayed focused on the darkness in front of her.

Unexpectedly, her back slammed into an unseen outcropping behind her. A particularly sharp edge semi-impaled her in the base of her spine. Her upper body went rigid, frozen from pain and cold, while her legs continued to scrape themselves uselessly against the jagged ground. She wanted to scream out against the pain, trying desperately to gain control of her body as it assailed itself against the unforgiving surroundings, but all of her attention was focused on the ledge in front of her.

The darkness seemed to take on shapes, looking like a huge bird and then a four-legged creature and then a human figure, all the while remaining perfectly spherical. The woman's eyes began to pick out swirling patterns in the infinite blackness, mesmerizing and hypnotizing her so that she no longer noticed or felt the pain that was being afflicted upon her.

-You have failed me-

The words were not heard or read. Some how the woman simply knew they were there.

-The Zorian is coming, and I shall complete the job-

The darkness seemed to grow larger now, consuming the entire peek on which it had resided. The globe began to grow exponentially, expanding its outer edge toward the petrified woman. She suddenly wished her legs would again tear themselves apart against the ground, even though she was still backed up against the outcropping, but all her limbs were frozen with fear. The spherical edge of the darkness was very close now. She found that she was able to draw her legs toward her chest, and she hugged her body into the tightest ball she could. Daring a peak, she saw that the darkness was only a couple inches aw-

"Mara."

Mara's eyes were yanked open. She was covered with sweat, her body curled up into a ball, lying in the middle of her bed. Her sheets were nowhere to be found. It wasn't for a few seconds that her body remembered to breath, and when she did, it came in a huge gasp. It took a few moments to get her body under control. Her breathing came back to normal, and she straightened her legs, working out the cramps that had attacked her with the brief hyperventilation. It was then that she remembered what had awakened her.

"Mara Jade."

The voice wasn't exactly audible, but she was definitely "hearing" it and not making it up. Mara suddenly got the feeling that she wasn't alone in her room. In a normal situation, she would have reached for her blaster, which she kept next to her bed, but she was feeling very vulnerable, and instead reached for her sheets, which were lying on the floor. Under her nightgown her skin was very moist from sweat, and a cool draft from the hotel's air-conditioning system made goose bumps stand up all over her body.

The bed was in the corner of the room, and she brought her back up against the wall, crouched on the bed with her covers wrapped around the front of her shivering body. She had enough presence of mind to not respond to the voice until it identified itself. Then she saw it. There was a figure standing in the opposite corner of the room. The door was still locked and latched from the inside, and none of the windows were opened. Mara began to relax a little, realizing that this visitor was not from her dream and if it was a thief, she could handle it.

"Mara?"

Relaxed, Mara was better able to understand the voice. It wasn't sound, but it was registering in the same part of her mind that normal noise would, simply bypassing the eardrums. It was transmitted through the Force. Mara relaxed entirely, reorienting her legs into a crossed sitting position and dropping her hands into her lap and on top of the bed sheet. "Yes, Skywalker."

The figure stepped forward slightly, as if uncomfortable with its surroundings. Mara noticed that it was slightly transparent, which explained why she wasn't able to see it right away.

"Did I scare you?"

"No," Mara replied, which wasn't a lie, but her body was still covered in sweat with her hair matted freakishly to the side of her head. Also, her posture, back up against the wall and covers clutched in her lap, didn't speak too highly of confidence. Mara examined Luke's figure as he stood about five meters in front of her bed. His eyes seemed to be staring past her, as if looking at something on the wall. "Can you see me?"

Luke shook his head. "Not really. I'm not actually there, or here, or where ever you are. Why do you ask?"

"Well," Mara responded, thinking quickly, "we women don't always sleep fully dressed." It wasn't a total lie, but Mara was sure that Luke had seen her in less than the nightgown she was wearing now.

"Well, don't worry. All I'm doing is projecting my image to you. You are the only one who can see me if you're not alone."

"I suppose I should tell Markus to go back to sleep then?"

"Uh,-"

"I'm kidding, Luke. I'm alone. Now, for what reason do I deserve this visit? If it's just to tell me that you aren't showing up tomorrow, don't worry. I was planning on leaving without you anyway."

"Actually, I don't see anyway that I'll make it tomorrow morning."

Mara caught the hidden meaning in his voice. "Where are you?"

"Right now I am locked inside a maximum security cell on the Dark Fist, a Super Star Destroyer hidden in the asteroid belt."

"So I guess you want me to send your stuff via Imperial shuttle," Mara said lightly, hiding the fact that she was totally surprised.

"What I need you to do is get in contact with Leia. Don't worry about me. I have a feeling that they don't want me dead. I need you to relay a message to Leia. Tell her that Senator Snotzenexer is an Imperial who is only after the presidency of the Republic so he can revert the government back to the ways of the old Empire."

Mara looked skeptical. "That sounds pretty outrageous. Remember that I met Snotzenexer. He isn't a senator. He's the president of the bank here on Iom, and there is no connection between him and the Empire." She paused. "You said you were on a Super Star Destroyer; who do they have commanding it?"

"I don't know her name, but she's an admiral."

"A female admiral?!" Mara sounded incredulous. "No one is going to believe this story. I don't even believe it."

"Do you think I'm lying?" Luke asked, not believing that Mara wasn't going to help him out.

"I don't think that you're lying, but that doesn't mean that you weren't lied to. Think about it, Luke. Let me guess; you were caught trespassing on or near an Imperial Super Star Destroyer, right? You aren't exactly on the Imperial's list of people to be nice to. What if this female admiral simply lied to you so that you would loose credibility? The Empire is done. They have nothing. Those ships will probably join the Republic in a few years, but if they can make you look bad in the mean time, then more power to them."

Luke was silent for a while. "Can you at least tell Leia where I am and what I think?"

"I'll do that," Mara wondered what Leia's response would be, but she'd find a way to tell her. "Now, I have a busy day tomorrow. Why don't you try and break out of your cell and let me get some sleep."

Luke smirked at her. "Thanks, Mara."

***

Anakin stood on the cliff and surveyed his surroundings. The cliff was only such because half of the mountain had been sheared away by one of the many meteors that had slammed into the mountainous coastline on Forinad. The rest of the coastline was pockmarked with almost more craters than the young Jedi could count. The water that hadn't receded had been collected into large lakes, filling up the indented ground. The water filled area might look fertile at first, but Anakin knew that because of the immense volcanic ash in the area, the water was so acidic that it would kill any fish in seconds and destroy any boat in a matter of hours.

Anakin turned his attention to the sky. The blanket that covered the planet couldn't even really be described as clouds. The immense amount of steam, combined with the enormous volume of ash that had been thrown into the atmosphere had created almost a mud shield against the sun. No sunlight or heat was able to get through to the planet's surface. The only difference between night and day was that during the day, the sky had an eerie, soft glow to it that was still darker than most normal nights. During the night, there was no light to speak of.

On a planet where the stars were worshipped, this was the worst kind of punishment imaginable. Just wait till the nuclear winter sets in, Anakin thought. Already the air was crisp and cold. In only a week it would be below freezing everywhere on the planet. In a month, the oceans would start to freeze, and then the glaciers would start their long, laborious trip across the continents. Life on this planet would come to an end, and it wouldn't start again for another thousand years.

Work was already in progress to try and limit the severity of the nuclear winter. Ships were in orbit trying skim as much of the soot and ash out of the atmosphere as they could. The problem they kept running into was that they couldn't take the bad without stealing the good. Each time they removed a section of the atmosphere, they took the ozone layer with it. Plus, the ships could only orbit in the outer atmosphere for so long before their shields over heated.

Anakin was ready to start his own method of correction. Standing alone in the darkness of the planet, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the air around him. There was little moisture in the cold air and the lack of humidity made it easier to deal with. Anakin started slowly. He levitated off the ground a couple feet and began to spin. The air was reluctant, but as Anakin threw himself into the Force, the air around him began to spin. Faster and faster the Jedi twirled until he was nothing more that a blur. The air too began to pick up speed. Suddenly, Anakin lifted his arms out straight. The sudden change in momentum should have ripped his arms off, instead Anakin used the Force to transfer the shock into the surrounding air. The result was an enormous inverted cyclone.

The tip of the funnel penetrated high into the sky above and almost at once ash began to rain down all around the spinning Jedi. Anakin began to spin even faster now, using centrifugal force to send the ash to the outside of the cyclone. He was standing on a narrow, elevated peak, and all around the base of the peak, dirt began to pile up in enormous mounds. Soon the ash was piled so high that Anakin's previous perch was no longer visible and his spinning feet were only a couple centimeters above the growing mound. The spinning Jedi saw the growing mound and his concentration was shattered as images of him being buried alive under tons of volcanic ash sprang to mind. His spinning slowed, down and he descended onto the top of the ash beneath him. The ash had been packed so hard by the Force induced cyclone that Anakin only made slight indentions on the dark pile under his feet.

Now that he was finished, the Force flowing out of him, he felt extremely fatigued and was forced to crumple into a sitting position. Anakin looked up to the sky and saw a faint glow of light where his inverted cyclone had vacuumed out several tons of ash. The glow that came through was faint, and even now, the pressure of the surrounding ash clouds were pressing in on the area, crushing it out of existence. Anakin sighed as he watched the last bit of his efforts fade away into blackness. There was over millions of times as much ash still in the sky as the amount he had removed, but he knew that it was a start. He might be able to perform this cleaning cyclone again in about six hours when his stamina had built back up, but a million six hour periods was 685 years, his quick math mind told him. This world would become unlivable in a matter of months. Anakin needed to have more Jedi here. He would have to make a call to the Academy and bring in some reinforcements.

***

Boba Fett sat in front of the screen waiting for the connection to be made. He tried not to glance nervously behind him, not wanting to seem anxious, but if the truth be known, he hadn't dealt too much with Jedi, and after seeing what Skywalker had done to Jabba, he had kept clear of the Force crowd. Trince could sense Boba's uneasiness and enjoyed it. He didn't know why Han and Lando wanted him, but was glad they had chosen him to round up the old bounty hunter.

The screen finally flickered to life; Lando was grinning cunningly on the other end. "Calrissian?" Boba asked. "I thought Solo wanted to speak with me."

"Oh, I'm here too, old buddy," Han said from off the screen. He walked into the communicator's video range and appeared leering over Lando's shoulder.

Boba smirked a hello at the two men. They weren't really enemies. The roles at Bespin could have very easily been reversed if the Rebellion had been the high payer. But as it was, he didn't think that the two men on the other end had many warm, fuzzy feelings about the ex-bounty hunter. "What do you to want?" Boba asked, not really having a clue what it could be.

"We need you to access your Imperial credit line," Lando said, cutting right to the chase.

"Which one?" Boba asked in all seriousness.

"The one here on Coruscant," Han said, irritated with Boba's reply, not realizing that he was being serious.

Lando knew that Boba probably did have several credit lines and put his hand on Han's arm to calm his friend. "We need to find a way to access the hidden accounts in the palace, and we can't find any links inside the computers here, so we figured that the only way to get into it was to trace a call from the outside."

"I'm so sure," Boba replied, this time he was sarcastic. "More like you want to pin me as a former Imperial employee and hold it over my head for vengeance's sake."

"Fett," Han said, loosing his patients quickly, "we don't need any proof against you. We have one of the galaxies best-trained fighters standing a meter behind you. If we wanted, we could dictate how many more times you drew breath. I don't think we'd need this elaborate scheme to take you down."

"In reality," Lando, the reasonable one, said, choosing his words carefully as to not give away the precarious financial situation of the Republic, "we want to liquidate the funds in the Emperor's remaining accounts. Han and I only recently discovered that the Republic had missed some of the accounts in their initial seizure."

"I see," Boba said. "You want me to access my account so you can take all my money."

"Blood money!" Han screamed. He would know because it had been his blood. "Take all your money out for all I care."

Boba thought for a minute and then shook his head. "I can't do it."

"Why not?" Lando asked before Han could get a word in.

"It's too risky. You have to look at it from my point of view. There is a reason that I still have money in that account. Anywhere that I try to remove it, I'll get caught. It's not tough for a bank to figure out from where you are withdrawing funds. The Empire has been on the black list ever since you guys took power. I'd walk into the bank to make my credit transfer and be arrested two minutes later as an Imperial agent."

"You have two choices," Lando said. "You can refuse to make the withdrawal, and we will have our Jedi Knight brainwash you for the information, or you can make the withdrawal with Trince at your side in case anything goes wrong."

Boba Fett looked back at Trince for the first time to see his reaction to being asked to play bodyguard to a character such as himself. The Jedi's face was impassive, and as Boba met his gaze, the Jedi smiled congenially at him. Fett didn't like his position, but he knew that Lando wasn't bluffing and wouldn't hesitate to have the Jedi get the information out of him manually. That was definitely not an option. "Okay, Calrissian, but I better not get busted for this, or we'll meet again real soon."

***

An hour later, Trince and Fett strolled into one of Gensifery's galactic banks. The old bounty hunter was casting glances all over the bank's main foyer, scouting out the security measures. There were two exits: the main entrance through which they had entered where two guards were posted, and a smaller side exit that required remote access. Other than the uniformed guards at the entrance, there didn't seem to be much in the way of offensive security. Fett was sure that there were several cameras in the building.

The pair walked up to one of the open bank tellers, and Fett leaned his right arm on the counter so the small blaster he had strapped to the inside of his arm was hidden in the relaxed flow of his loose fitting shirt. "Good afternoon, gentlemen. How may I help you?"

"I'd like to close out a remote account please," Fett asked very politely.

"We have a five percent transaction fee for anything under fifty thousand and a two percent charge for anything over."

"That will be fine."

"The fee will be waved if you open an account with this bank for the transaction."

"I think I'll have it on a credit voucher if you don't mind," Fett said, handing over the account card for the transaction. The teller took the card and inserted it into her machine. After a few moments, she looked up at Fett with a little concern. Trince noticed the look and wondered what it meant. If Fett understood how the card worked, it would be informing the teller that her computer was preparing to make a transaction call to Coruscant.

"Do you have the transaction number, sir?"

Fett didn't like the tone of her voice. She asked the question almost in fear. It was the kind of voice a hostage would use to ask the terrorist if she could use the refresher. Fett spoke the twelve-character code from memory, which did nothing to ease her mind.

The computer beeped a few seconds after she entered the code and the teller's face paled slightly. "Uh, sir, this transaction is rather large, and I'm afraid that I'll have to get the manager to approve it."

Fett could do nothing but nod as his mind raced for a way to get out of the situation. The account should have been something around two hundred seventy-five thousand, unless the Emperor had instituted a very generous interest rate that Fett hadn't known about. Regardless, banks regularly transacted amounts twice that high.

"We're leaving," Fett said to Trince under his breath without moving from his leaning position on the counter. He was watching the teller and the manager exchange words, but at the end of the exchange, the manager didn't head in their direction, but instead spoke into a hand held communicator. "I am going to take out the man on the right, and you will take the guy on the left, okay."

Trince had no idea what the bounty hunter was talking about. Fett watched as the teller walked back to them with a false smile plastered on her face. Out of the corner of his eye, the alert bounty hunter saw that the two guards at the entrance stiffened as they received orders through unseen communications devices.

"On the count of a silent three," Fett said to the still confused Jedi. Trince hadn't even noticed that the guards were walking up behind them, both with their hands poised over their weapons. As Fett mentally counted to two, he smoothly pushed away from the counter in a natural motion and then turned quickly, dropping into a crouch and snapping his right arm forward. His hidden blaster shot down his sleeve into his waiting hand.

Trince still had his back turned to the danger behind them when Fett fired his first shot into the guard on the right. The targeted security personnel had just gotten his gun out of his holster when the shot took him in the chest. Fett saw immediately that Trince was not, in fact, going to take out the one on the left, and the bounty hunter rolled forward and to his right as the other guard fired into the floor where Fett had been.

Trince was now turned around and watched Fett come out of his roll and smoothly hit the other guard with his second shot. The area behind the counter was a buzz as everyone dropped to the floor. Fett saw that there was an automated weapons system that was being activated and three mechanized gun barrels were being aimed at him from behind the counter.

So far, the security in the bank, whether it be human or electronic, was only focusing on Fett. Trince was about to change that. The Jedi called on the Force, and everything began to slow down. He noticed the glance that Fett gave towards the area above the counter and felt the surge of power coming from that area. Trince's lightsaber was out faster than the human eye could follow, and as the first few shots came from the row of automated weapons aimed at the prone bounty hunter, the Jedi stepped in front of the barrage and successfully blocked each bolt.

With some of the attention now focused on Trince, Fett was able to scramble to his feet and head for the smaller back exit. The automated weapons took a fraction of a second to realign at their new target and fired. Trince timed is movements perfectly and stepped forward underneath the fire from above. The guns readjusted again, but the deadly accurate lightsaber made short work of them, reducing the entire bank of weapons to sparking wires.

Trince turned around to see what had become of Fett, and saw the bounty hunter ineffectually firing his tiny blaster at the reinforced security door. The Jedi ran over to him, pushed him aside, and slashed the glassine door open with a flick of his wrists. Alarms sounded all over the bank and both of the offenders knew that not only were all of the bank officials aware of their actions, but likely the local authorities would be after them as well.

The two fugitives ran out into the afternoon sun on the tropical world and noticed that the crowd of people who had gathered outside the bank to inspect the alarm recognized them as the perpetrators. It was a lot harder to disappear into the crowd if the crowd knew you were there.

"Jedi," someone yelled from the crowd, "if you're not part of this, then back away from him, otherwise, put your weapon down and come peacefully."

Both men turned to look at the speaker. The police officer was in uniform and flanked by three other men, all holding blaster rifles pointing at the pair. The officers were on Trince and Fett's right. Fett looked to his left and saw that a matching trio had them boxed in. The bank was directly behind them with the crowd and ocean front property in front of them. Fett thought he could see a few officers working their way through the crowd, but he wasn't sure.

"Well, Jedi," the bounty hunter grumbled under his breath, "they want to know if you are with me or against me. I want to know too."

Trince heard the statement, but didn't give it too much attention. He was looking for a way out of this situation. They hadn't done any real damage yet. Fett had fired at the two security guards in the bank, but the blaster he had was far too small to be anything less then a stun gun. They might be able to surrender and talk their way out of it. Then again, this planet had just been bombed to pieces by the Empire, and if they thought that Fett and he were members of the extinct government, they might not be given the opportunity to talk.

He glanced back at the bank they had just exited. It was a one-story building, and Trince eyed the flat roof mischievously. "Well, Jedi?" Fett prompted him. Trince didn't reply vocally, but grabbed Fett's arm, turned around, and leaped high into the air. Laser fire strafed the ground where they had stood, and a few beams followed their leap onto the roof. The pair landed hard on the permacrete roof and kept low as the rifle bolts streaked over their heads.

When the fire subsided a little, Trince and Fett sprang to their feet and ran like crazy for the far edge of the building. Trince helped Fett with the leap over an alley onto the roof of another building, and the two fugitives made their way halfway across the city by leaping from one building to another.

Ten minutes after their escape, Trince slowed down their run and allowed Fett to catch his breath. Amazingly to the Jedi, the old bounty hunter wasn't nearly as winded as he had expected him to be. "I suppose that this is where you leave me," Fett said, not giving away whether he was pleased for the parting or still wanting a mild sense of protection.

"I think you can take care of yourself," Trince replied, walking to the edge of the roof they were on and dropped gracefully down four meters into an alley. Fett walked to the edge of the roof and wondered if the Jedi was still aiding him. He dropped in like fashion to his partner, but his decent was not Force aided, and it was only his coordination and ability to roll with the fall that prevented him from breaking a leg.

Fett was eager to part company with the Jedi, but he had to walk with him to the entrance of the dead end alley before they could part ways. Nothing was said as the two men walked in opposite directions, but Trince cast a glance over his shoulder occasionally to make sure that the bounty hunter wasn't following him.

***

On Coruscant, Han watched Lando typing furiously as he tried to track the transaction Fett had initiated. Lando had identified the antenna that had received the incoming signal and was in the process of tracing the signal along the immensely complex wiring network of the ancient palace. "Come on, baby," Lando said under his breath, "stay open a little longer." After a few more furious clicks on the keyboard, "Got it!" Lando shoved away from the desk, pointing at the computer screen in triumph as his wheeled chair rocketed backwards.

Han moved in front of the vacated terminal, trying to make sense of the numerous and odd schematics that covered the screen. "Got what?"

Lando scrambled to roll his chair back to the computer so he could show his friend what he was talking about. "Right here," he said, pointing to a collection of symbols, "is the mainframe that stores the hidden accounts of the Emperor."

"Great," Han replied. "So you can tap into it, right?"

"No," Lando said, looking at Han with an expression that said, "haven't you understood anything I've told you." Out loud he said, "You can only access this thing remotely from an outside line. It isn't connected to any wiring in the palace."

"Then how did you track it?"

"When a wire carries a current it produces a electromagnetic field," Lando started, feeling like he was standing at the head of a classroom. "When that field comes in contact with other wires, it induces a current in them. I was able to pick up traces of current along a path that led to the main frame. It's kind of like tracking an animal. You might not be able to see every paw print it leaves, but by catching small glimpses of tracks, you can make a good guess as to its course. Then when you stumble upon the beast's den, you know you've been going in the right direction."

"So now we know where it is. How do we get to it?"

"We can't access it from a line in the palace because it isn't wired to any, but we can extract the information we need manually. We just need to go to this main frame, tap into it with a hyper-interface card, and then - PRESTO - we're in."

Han thought that Lando was just a little too excited about this whole thing. Han wasn't quite so ready to go along yet. His subconscious was screaming at him that there was a catch somewhere. "Great, so where is it?"

"That's the good part," Lando replied. "It says that it is here in the Imperial palace. It says: Imperial palace, level 2, record room, Ecormics section."

There's the catch, Han thought. "Are you sure that it doesn't say 'level 200?'"

It was Lando's turn to look confused. "No, it says level 2. What's the problem?"

"Of course the Emperor would keep everything important down there," Han mumbled under his breath. "Do you know what level 2 is?" he asked Lando. The old gambler shook his head. "Let me give you a hint. Level 1 is ground level."

"Ground level?" Lando asked incredulously. "By ground level, do you mean dirt level?" Han nodded his head. "Coruscant has dirt?"

"Not that anyone sees it," Han said, agreeing with Lando that the statement was a bit odd. "Here on Coruscant, we don't throw away our trash, we just build on top of it. We are kilometers above the ground right now."

Lando breathed in sharply. "How many levels are there?"

"They stopped counting. Up in the populated levels, there is so much variance in the construction making it impossible to identify individual levels. Some are over thirty meters tall, others are only two. The point is that the furthest down I've ever been is about level 40, and I still have nightmares about it."

"Well, we don't have to go outside to go to level 2 in the palace, do we?"

Han nodded his head. All of the lower levels in the palace have been closed. It's like being in a skyscraper during a flood. As the waters rise, you have to go up and close the floors beneath you. In order to keep from getting buried, we have to constantly build on top of ourselves. Granted, the construction has slowed down, and there probably haven't been any vertical additions to the palace in almost fifteen years, but hundreds of years ago when Coruscant was in the heat of construction, this palace grew faster than a Fornkian grass shoot."

"Well, can't we get through the closed sections anyway?"

"Closed means closed, Lando. The vermin down there have no doubt overwhelmed the lower sections of the palace. In order to keep them out, we have to keep us out as well. I'm afraid that in order to get to the lower levels of the palace, you need to go down outside. And you will be going down alone."

"Come on Han. It can't be that bad. You've been on some pretty crummy planets during your smuggling days. Besides, we wouldn't be doing this for thrills. The economic future of the Republic is at stake."

"The Republic has survived pretty well so far. It's been well over a week since that furniture guy stole the records. If he had sold them to anyone, it would have come out by now."

"Have you heard from your kids yet?" Han shook his head. "I'm not saying anything bad has happened to them," Lando was quick to put in, "but maybe this guy is better than you think. He could just be waiting for the right time. I mean have you ever thought about how opportune a time he chose to steal them in the first place. This guy knows what's going on."

"Maybe if we had a Jedi, I'd go down," Han compromised, "but even then, you'd have to drag me."

"I still have two of them in my employ. Yova is pretty busy in the mines, but since Trince is done with Fett, I'm sure I could convince him to come down here."

Han didn't say anything for a while. He understood that the future of the Republic could depend on this, but he also knew that there was just as good a chance that the stolen records would never resurface. "I'll tell you what. Why don't you call your Jedi friend down here. It'll take a few days for him to get here. If nothing happens by then, you guys can go back to your diamond asteroid together. If something does happen, then, well, I guess I'll think about going down there."

"It must be pretty bad."

"You have no idea, buddy."

***

Jaina was sitting in the copilot chair, wincing every time the ship made a jolt

The ship was jolting because Eran had led them through a huge nebula and the hyperdrive was finding it hard to cope with some of the denser regions of the cloud. They had already fallen out of hyperspace four times. Eran's ship had a weaker hyperdrive and he had fallen out seven times. The difference was that each time the Imperial had fallen out, he had been able to change course, thus forcing Jacen to exit hyperspace and change course also.

Jaina was wincing because in the twin's haste to leave Coruscant, they had forgotten that the medical supplies on the Scavenger were very low. Both blaster shots that Jaina had taken in the escape from the police station had been serious. The shot that had hit her in the side had done the least damage, but caused the most pain. It had burned a small hole in her torso about ten centimeters up from her waistline. It hadn't taken any muscles or bone with it, but every time she moved or breathed she could feel the wound wanting to rip open. Her leg was very serious. The shot had hit her almost straight on in the thigh, burning away an enormous patch of skin, a fair amount of muscle, and fracturing the bone.

Jaina was fortunate that blaster wounds didn't bleed due to the cauterizing effect of the bolt, because she would have probably bled to death during the trip from the jail to the ship. Jacen had done his best job to clean the wounds and soothe Jaina mentally so that she could initiate a Jedi healing trance, but he hadn't been able to do a complete job because he needed to get away from the planet before the authorities found their ship. The dirty rainwater had infected both of Jaina's wounds and she was just now getting over the fever.

Jacen had been torn between getting aid for his sister and chasing Eran. Jaina was the one who had told him that she wasn't in life threatening danger and made up his mind. Even though they were both in agreement with the continued chase, neither one was in a very good mood about it.

They had both been wounded. Jaina's wounds were obvious, but Jacen's hurt ego was harder to see. He had been arrested for attempted murder, and he wasn't exactly sure that he wasn't guilty. The moment of decision kept flashing through his waking dreams. He always saw himself poised with his lightsaber held high over the fallen form of Eran. Half of his dreams ended with him deactivating the weapon, and rendering his opponent unconscious through a variety of means. The other half of the dreams ended with him decapitating Eran.

Jacen had never lost a lightsaber battle before the incident at the palace almost two weeks ago. That fight had been short and not a very good judge of talent, but he had lost. The more recent battle between combatants was a more accurate judge of skill and Jacen had won. While the Jedi had been victorious, he had a feeling that he might not be if they fought again. It was this thought that haunted him during his dreams. The times when he deactivated his lightsaber were the times when he felt that he has sufficiently proven his superior skill. When he still feels that Eran might be better than him, then he kills him.

Is it that important? Jacen kept asking himself. Do I need to be the best fighter ever? At no point in their last fight had Eran had the upper hand. There was a reason of course: Eran hadn't wanted to fight. All he had wanted was to get away. The easiest thing to do would have been to surrender to the police. Jacen, on the other hand, had felt he had something to prove and fought with a purpose.

Jacen looked over at his sister. She had her leggs propped up and was fiddling with the straps on her leg splint. She had spent the past two nights in deep trances and was pretty sure that she would be able to walk on her leg in about three more days.

Jacen wondered what drove her. Everyone he knew had some type of goal in life. Everyone had a purpose. His mother led, his uncle taught, his brother yearned for knowledge, his father was born to fly, and he seemed destined to fight. Jacen didn't see any real goal that Jaina had set forth upon. Half the time he thought that her lot in life was to make sure that he didn't get into any trouble. If that was the case, then she had the biggest task of everyone.

Jacen laughed at that idea, but still seriously wondered what her motivation was. The Scavenger was finally emerging from the nebula and Jacen was furious to find that Eran had gotten an enormous lead. He had had about twelve hours on the twins when they had left Aldertain, but they had closed that gap to within two. Now it seemed to be back up to twelve. It was just as well because Jaina needed the time to rest and Jacen needed to sort out his feelings before he and Eran met again.

****

Chapter 18 "Pocket Change"

The morning sun on Iom was bright and warm. Mara had a bag slung over her shoulder and was standing in front of the Varion Imperial Bank. She had thought about what Luke had told her and had decided she should at least check it out.

The secretary recognized Mara from her visit a few days earlier. "I'm sorry, but President Snotzenexer isn't in right now. He did tell me to tell you that the electronic equipment you delivered is working very well, and he hopes to do business with you in the future."

Mara smiled politely at the compliment. "Could you tell me when he is getting back so I could set up an appointment? We might be able to set up a credit line for future deliveries."

"I'm sorry miss, but he is gone on vacation, and I don't know when he'll be back."

"Can you tell me where he went? I might be able to get in touch with him."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not at liberty to give you that information."

Mara tried to act depressed, but she knew the tone of voice the secretary had used. It was more likely that the secretary hadn't been told where Snotzenexer had gone. "Thanks," Mara said in parting and walked down the hallway that led toward the hangar where her spaceship was docked. If Snotzenexer had gone to Coruscant, why hadn't he told anyone? As far as Mara knew, the Varion system wasn't a member of the Republic, so if Snotzenexer went to Coruscant as a senator, then he would be the initial representative for the whole system. You'd think that he would have told someone, or that it would have made the news networks.

As Mara waited for the turbo lift, she began to change her line of reasoning. If Luke was right and there was an Imperial tie to the bank president, that would be the only reason he would keep his mission as a senator secret. If someone in the Varion system knew about the Imperial connection, they could inform the Republic. While it wasn't illegal to be a senator while also being a former Imperial, if Snotzenexer was pretending not to be an Imperial, then it showed he had something to hide.

Mara stepped into the lift and pressed the button for the lower hangar level. A female admiral had Luke prisoner on a Super Star Destroyer. If Mara could somehow connect that admiral to Snotzenexer, then Luke's story would have some believability.

The door to the turbo lift opened, and Mara walked right into the person who had been waiting for the elevator. The woman who Mara ran into had been holding a stack of about seven data pads, and they all went flying. "Oh," Mara exclaimed, "I'm so sorry. Let me help you."

"It's no big deal," the woman said, though Mara could tell that she was holding back her frustration at the inconvenience. As the two of them crouched to pick up the pads, the door to the turbo lift closed and whisked upward as someone else had called it.

Mara felt extremely guilty at having made the woman wait for the lift to come back. As she handed back the four pads she had collected she noticed the make of the pad. Mara had become an expert in electronic equipment during her trading days, and this was a very old brand. She had seen it once before, though. Mara had used one of those data pads when she had worked for the Empire.

Mara was now standing next to the woman while she stared at the closed doors of the lift. "I'm really sorry," Mara said again. "Maran Gale," Mara introduced herself, extending her hand.

The woman turned away from the lift, realizing that in addition to having run into her, Mara was also going to make herself a nuisance. "Pleased to meet you." The woman shifted the stack of pads to one hand to accept the extended appendage. "I'm Jill Sanson."

"You haven't seen anyone else around the hangar, have you?"

"I've seen quite a few people. Anyone in particular?"

"Of course," Mara giggled, playing the part of the fool as she looked around at the countless techs that were working on ships in the hangar. "I mean my copilot. He's about this tall," she held her hand up, "sandy blonde hair, and about our age. His name is Luke Skywalker."

Sanson had begun to stare at the lift doors again, but her head snapped around at this. Mara smiled at her cleverly laid trap and then at Sanson's feeble attempts to cover up her surprise. "The Luke Skywalker? That's quite a copilot."

"You might think so, but I disagree. I'm supposed to leave in an hour, and he's nowhere to be found."

"Well, I'm sure he'll turn up somewhere."

"Maybe your right," Mara said, beginning to turn away from the conversation and walk into the main section of the hangar, "thanks for your help, Jill."

"I didn't do much, Mara. I hope you find him."

"Maran."

"Excuse me," Sanson said, puzzled.

"You called me Mara. My name is Maran."

"Of course it is," Sanson said with a smile on her face. The admiral stared a few extra seconds at Mara before turning back to the lift doors.

***

Two hours later Mara was staring at the computer screen in the Jade's Fire. She had moved her ship to a public hangar for fear that Admiral Sanson might come looking for her. Right now she had other things on her mind. Mara was staring at the order document she had received for the shipment of electronic equipment she had delivered to the bank. When she had received the order a little less than a month ago, she had jumped at the opportunity to transport the expensive equipment and hadn't given the actual request document much thought. Now that she looked at it, it was all in order with one exception.

An Alex Snotzenexer had given the authorization for the document. Nothing was wrong with the authorization other than Snotzenexer hadn't been the president of the Varion Imperial Bank a month ago. He had just become president within the last two weeks. At the time of the transfer of power, every news network called the move outrageous and ludicrous. They insisted upon foul play and demanded to know why the president would sell the bank without any warning to anyone. Snotzenexer had been able to silence the criticism by making the bank a ton of money and by showing no sign or evidence of foul play.

Mara still couldn't get past the date disagreement. If the transfer between Snotzenexer and the former president had been an expected thing, planned out long in advance, then she might be able to understand the authorization on the order form. But even then, it was still proper business to have the president at the time of the order authorize the purchase. This order didn't have that, and if Mara checked with the financial records of the bank, she was willing to bet she would find the bank never made the request, and Snotzenexer had forged the document.

Too many things were falling into place too quickly for Mara to sort out all at once. From her former standpoint that Snotzenexer was innocent, nothing made sense, but if she changed her views it all fell nicely into place. Snotzenexer had planned to take over the bank. In order to pull off such a large theft he would have to make sure he didn't leave any loose ends. With a little extra research she found out that one of the presidential assistants of the bank had died in a skiing accident, while the bank president himself had died from a heart attack only an hour after Snotzenexer had taken control from him. The papers at the time had taken this to mean that the stress of being bank president had finally gotten to him, and it only supported his spontaneous selling of the presidency. To Mara, his and the assistant's deaths were far too coincidental. With these two deaths and the silencing of the second assistant, Snotzenexer had essentially removed all human evidence.

The bank security system was tight with a ton of safeties. In order to pull off the hostile take-over, Snotzenexer would have had to disable or break into the security system. If the admiral had broken into the bank security, then there would be a record of it in the security logs. If someone were to check those logs, Snotzenexer would be found out. The only way to correct that would be to replace the equipment, thus erasing all evidence of the break-in. That was where I came in, Mara thought. He needed the equipment as soon after the takeover as possible. That meant he had to order it far in advance. He couldn't risk the chance that someone would get too curious about the take over and check the security records. If he had waited until he had been president, it would have taken too long.

Then there was the whole deal with Luke. Why me? Mara thought. Was it just a coincidence that she, someone who had a lot of experience with both the Empire and the Republic, would be called in to take part in this whole fiasco? If Mara believed in anything, it was that there was no such thing as coincidences. She had gotten information through the circuit that there was Imperial activity in this sector. From all she knew of Snotzenexer, it seemed very clumsy of him to let his ships be seen, unless, of course, he wanted his ships to be seen.

Everything made sense now. Snotzenexer allows a rumor to get around that there is Imperial activity in the Varion system. He then buys electronic equipment from Coruscant to be delivered by someone who has ties with the Republic. She hadn't told anyone else this, but the real reason that she had arrived on Coruscant without a copilot was because he simply hadn't shown up when she was ready to leave. She had waited three hours, but there was no sight of him. If Snotzenexer had ordered him to be taken out, that would have given Luke the perfect cover for the trip to the Varion system.

Mara thought back to the meal she and Snotzenexer had eaten together. For some reason he had asked about her copilot. Now it made sense why. Wait, Luke had come looking for a specific Imperial officer - the one who had commanded the attack on the academy. It just so happened that the commander had been Snotzenexer. Could the bank president have known that Luke was looking for him? Mara wanted to say no, but everything was falling into place so well that there were no room coincidences. Mara almost wanted to laugh out loud at Luke and her secrecy about his presence here. Luke had used a false name while disguising his appearance with the Force. All the while, Snotzenexer not only knew that he was here, but had arranged the trip.

That had to be the answer. How else would Sanson have known who she was? She had called Mara by her real name on accident. Snotzenexer must have told her that Mara Jade was going to be accompanying Luke Skywalker. That was the connection that Mara had needed between the president and the admiral. Sanson had known something that only Snotzenexer had access to.

Now she had to worry about what she wanted to do with Luke. She had a ton of information, but it was nothing that she could explain to Leia over a transmission. Plus, Luke had fallen into a trap that had been set for a definite purpose. If what Snotzenexer had planned required Luke to be out of the picture, the best chance she had of throwing a hydro-spanner into the works was to get Luke out.

***

President Overn stared at the document through steepled fingers. The bank president had been in this position for over half an hour now. The paper on his desk forced a decision out of him that he had hoped he could have put off for a couple more days. There wasn't anything unexpected printed on the paper. It was just simple request for a renegotiation of the loan agreement between his bank and the Mining Corporation of Xentin, MCX. The request was bogus, both parties knew. There was going to be no negotiations. What had happened was simple. There had been a terrible disaster on Xentin and there was no way that the MCX was going to pay any time in the next hundred years. The request for negotiations was just a nice way of saying they were not going to be able pay.

The normal thing to do was to take the loss. Galactic banks, like Overn's, were used to dealing in multi-billion loans, and the cancellation of a small loan like this one was not as big a deal as it could be. Planetary banks would never be able to function by letting people declare bankruptcy, but galactic banks, under unique situations such as natural disaster or accidental death, had a tradition of not stomping on someone when they were down.

This did not mean that the banks threw their money around. It had taken a lot of time for the people at MCX to convince Overn and other bank officials to grant them the loan. Risks were part of the deal, and while there was always a default cosigner, it was only used if the bankrupt company was at fault, which was the most common case.

In the past, Overn had two similar instances happen over the ten year span in which he was president. Once a shuttle crash had killed all the top executives of a major ship building company. The irony of the crash was lost when the company went under. It was a very tragic thing that destroyed the economy of the entire planet. Overn had taken the loss. The other time it was a large petroleum company that had three of its four platforms destroyed in a seaquake. In either case, calling upon the defaulter to pay only puts a blemish on everyone's record. The bank agreed to make a loan to someone who went bankrupt. The company itself is officially declared bankrupt. And the third party is marked as someone who cosigned with a bankrupt company. Most of the time it was necessary to penalize someone who had bitten off more than they could chew, but this was different.

It would have been different, that is, if it weren't for Snotzenexer. The conversation that the two bank presidents had had right before Snotzenexer had taken his leave of absence really bugged Overn. It was almost as if he knew what was going to happen. Or if not what, at least that something was going to happen. Regardless of what Snotzenexer had known, he had made it clear what he expected of Overn and his bank. If Overn let this whole thing slide, it would take its effect in the stockholders' earnings. It would be a very minor set back, and compared to the overall earnings the bank would make its investors, not one person in a thousand would even bring it up. Snotzenexer was one in a million.

Overn was really curious what the more famous bank president would do in this situation. For all Overn knew, Snotzenexer would probably find a way to rebuild the company from scratch. What ever he would do, Overn was sure that it would not be to simply take the loss and move on. The real question was: "What would Snotzenexer do if Overn let it slide?" Would he understand the whole situation and agree with Overn's move, or would he pull out and find another bank that respected his money. If Snotzenexer did that, everyone would follow suit, and that would be the end of his precious bank.

It basically came down to two simple facts. If he collected the owed money from the defaulter, who in this case was the Republic, Snotzenexer would have no reason to pull out. If he didn't, there was an off chance that Snotzenexer would pull out.

Sandie Hollins, Overn's secretary, walked into the president's office and saw that the document was sitting exactly where she had left it in the middle of Overn's immaculate desk. "I'll file this with the rest of the MCX stuff." She walked over to his desk, noticing that her boss hadn't moved yet. "Do you want me to type a memo to the stock holders explaining this issue?"

Overn still had his fingers steepled and now laced the three lesser ones, leaving his thumbs under his chin and his index fingers on his forehead. "Sir?" Sandie prompted.

"How much did they still owe?" he asked through his fingers.

"A little more than two hundred forty million on a four hundred million loan at four percent yearly over ten years," Sandie's unwavering memory told him.

Overn sighed audibly. He opened his hands and rubbed his temples back through his thinning hair, clasping his hands behind his head. Two hundred forty million was pocket change, but still . . . "We're, going to collect," he said finally.

For her credit, Sandie's knees only buckled slightly. "Excuse me?" Overn didn't reply to the semi-rhetorical comment. Sandie was pretty quick and figured it out faster than most would. "This is about President Snotzenexer, isn't it?"

Overn nodded slowly. "What do you think about him?"

"He's brilliant, good looking, in good health, is filthy rich, and has more power than anyone else alive. He has the ability to bankrupt anyone he wants. At the same time he can breathe life into anyone and they instantly become the most profitable business of the entire quarter. No one should be allowed to have that kind of power."

"You didn't answer my question. Do you think I'm doing the right thing?"

"For Snotzenexer, yes. For the bank, no. In a way though, they are interconnected. As one goes, so goes the other. To answer your first question, yes I like him. With all the power he has, there isn't any of it that he hasn't earned. Also, he hasn't abused any of it yet. Unfortunately," she smiled at her boss, "he's married."

As Sandie turned to go she called one last comment back over her shoulder. "I'll contact the Republic and tell them what has happened. I'll try to break the news to them gently. Hope they don't go bankrupt on us too."

In his office, Overn chuckled, "Yeah, right."

***

Leia watched as the formalities of inducting new members to the senate were going on. She usually played the role of MC, but in her deflated state, Senator Belsiphvin was doing it. The young senator was handling the proceedings with her usual grace and charm. There were two new senators that had entered during the week. There was some important bank president and a freakish alien at which Leia still hadn't gotten used to looking. It had three eyes that weren't quite semetric, and they made you constantly shift your head, compelling you to believe the fault was your own angle of observation. It was a dark blue color with skin dryer than Tatooine. It was about 1.8 meters tall and had two rows of very sharp teeth.

Despite the alien's odd appearance, the bank president was getting most of the attention. Apparently he had done some amazing things in stock market trading in the resent weeks and was receiving very high praise from many different senators. Leia had heard that not only were the long time senators talking highly of him, but he also seemed to be a big hit with the former Imperials. Maybe this was the kind of person that the Republic needed in leadership. Leia tried to chuckle at the irony that flew through her mind. If they only knew about the Republic's financial state, they would probably jump at the opportunity to replace her with this bank president. Leia tried to chuckle, but failed.

Belsiphvin had finished the swearing in and motioned to Leia to start the session. Leia walked over to the platform and glanced down at the agenda. "Uh, Senator Belsiphvin," Leia said out of the mic before the other senator left the raised platform. "You might want to over-see this first item."

Belsiphvin looked questioningly at Leia, but understood when she saw the first item. It had been decided that Leia wasn't to preside over the proceedings that dealt with the investigation against her. "First up on the agenda," Belsiphvin said to the assembly, "is the first piece of evidence against President Organ-Solo, brought forward by the special investigation council." Belsiphvin looked toward Senator Quenthor's usual seat and saw that the former Imperial Captain was already walking toward the podium.

Quenthor mounted the steps and walked slowly and purposefully to the microphone. Snotzenexer and the other new senator had seats up front for today, and Quenthor nodded and smiled at Snotzenexer as he approached the podium. Snotzenexer wished that he had a blaster to blow the stupid Imperial's freakin head off. Any perceived connection between the two men would only make his job that much harder.

Before Quenthor spoke, he slipped a data chip into a slot in the podium. "We have received a recording of the first conversation between President Organa-Solo and President Carn of the Planet Trewist, the fifth planet in the Denorid system." As soon as he had finished there was harsh whispering all over the assembly floor. "I know that these conversations are not supposed to be recorded, but this is definitely a special case."

Snotzenexer was sitting on the edge of his seat. He was almost sure that Quenthor was going to be dumb enough to say from whom he had gotten the recording. The bank president did not enjoy having the fate of his future career rest in the hands of the mental midget up on stage.

"We received this recording from a news network that requested to remain unanimous. The Denorians do not broadcast on a secure channel and it is very likely that several recordings were made." Before too much more argument could be made, Quenthor began playing the recording. The members of the assembly couldn't argue any more as the Republic emblem that appeared on the huge screen behind the podium was replaced by a split view of both President Carn and Leia.

"Let me introduce myself," Carn said first, "I am President Carn of the planet Trewist, the fifth planet in the Denorid system. I am pleased to speak with you President Leia Organa-Solo, so that we might discuss the matter at hand. We will be glad to assist you in any way possible, as long as the uniformity of our sky can be restored."

Leia was watching the video from her seat up on the raised platform, sitting next to Belsiphvin. She was really wondering what in the world Senator Quenthor expected to get out of this recording. She remembered that the exchange had not gone smoothly, but Leia had acted in the expected matter. Snotzenexer was also watching the video in wonder. He had seen the recording in its original form and then after the changes had been made. The changes had looked very convincing on the small screen, on which he had previewed it, but now Leia's lips were two meters across on the big screen and if there was even the slightest mistake, the assembly would see the recording as a fake

"I am also pleased to speak with you President Carn," Leia's image replied, "and I want to let you know that if there's anything we can do to make this transition smoother for you, we will be glad to lend assistance."

Carn seemed puzzled by this comment. "I believe that the best course of action would be to simply return the stars to their God-given position as we had discussed earlier. Do you not agree?"

"I know that this must be a very troubling time on your worlds, but you have to believe me that everything that can be done will be."

"So the sky will be set aright?"

"I am afraid that the sky has been changed forever, and you will have to learn to live with these changes."

The whole assembly gasped at Leia's harsh response. Snotzenexer was even more pleased than he expected. Not only had the editing proved flawless, but the removal of some key words, added an edge to Leia's speech that hadn't been in the original.

"President Leia, I don't think you truly understand what has happened," Carn was managing to keep his voice calm. "The Mighty Hawk is blind and winter is only two moons away. My people have lived and prospered under the same sky for many centuries, and we will not allow any government to tell us that we must change our ways because of some minor explosion in space."

"President Carn, I know that no harm will come to your people because of this. Our scientists-"

"Your scientist are mistaken. Have you ever seen the sky from the Seronid peak on a clear night? Of course you have not. You can not know the beauty and wonder that the sight inspires. Now you are telling us that you will not fix it - refuse to fix it!"

"It can't be fixed!" Leia said, a little too loudly. "You must realize that if anything should be done we would do it, but we don't see the need. It's just that we don't care."

By now, the whole assembly was screaming at the screen. Carn too had heard enough. "I understand completely. You think that because you are big and powerful that you can fly your huge ships anywhere, blowing things apart, but refusing to fix them when you are finished. And if some small, backward system gets hurt in the process, so be it. President Leia, I regret to say that our meeting is over. If anything happens to our peaceful way of life, I will hold you personally responsible." With that, the screen went blank.

Leia was in shock. The screams that were aimed in her direction failed to register in her ears as she tried to comprehend what she had just seen and heard. Had she said those things? Had she really lost her poise like that? Leia desperately wanted to say no, but the whole memory seemed like a blur and the words she had just heard were far too familiar.

Quenthor let the screaming go on much longer than he should have before he pounded the electric gavel for silence. After the assembly had calmed somewhat, a single cry could be heard from the back somewhere. "The recording is a fake!"

This started the commotion all over again. Quenthor's confidence took a little dip as he pondered this accusation, not having considered the possibility before. He searched for Snotzenexer in the front row, but the admiral refused to meet his glances. Quenthor finally restored order and tried to see how to proceed. Someone from the middle of the assembly helped him out. "Let the president speak for herself."

Leia stood where she was. She wore a portable microphone and cleared her throat. Her knees were a little unsteady. "I don't know what to say," she confessed.

Leia's hesitance returned a large measure of Quenthor's confidence. "Can you tell us if that is how the conversation went? Was that you on the screen?"

"It must be, bu-" what ever else Leia was going to say was drowned out in the ensuing chaos. Leia had no way to cope with these drastic changes of events, and she knew that her days as president had just come to an end. Even Belsiphvin looked at her with a sudden lack of respect.

Quenthor had no idea how to restore order. He again looked for Snotzenexer for guidance. This time, amongst all the confusion, Snotzenexer felt it was safe to answer. The admiral mouthed the words "a vote" to the idiot on stage.

Quenthor pounded the gavel as hard as he could. The next fifteen minutes saw Leia ousted from the presidency, and some semblance of order restored. After the whole issue was settled, Quenthor stood at the front of the assembly as if he thought there might be more. Belsiphvin walked over to him and advised him to take his seat. "If it is possible to continue, I suggest that we move to the next item for today, though I doubt it will be as meaningful now." She couldn't have been more wrong.

Senator Caylon, walked up to the podium to present his information to the rest of the assembly. Caylon had not been a huge supporter of Leia, and he had an extra bounce in his step. "Agreeing with Senator Belsiphvin, I don't think that my news will be that important, but it is notable. I was contacted today by the secretary of the Galactic Bank in the Detsgor system, my home system. She informed me that there has been a terrible accident on Xentin involving the Mining Corporation of Xentin. The accident resulted in the total destruction of the corporation. MCX had a loan with the Detsgor bank and, if any of you have forgotten, we had agreed to be the cosigners of that loan as a part of Xentin's admission into the Republic. The bank secretary told me that they need to collect the remaining amount of the loan for tax reasons and called on us to fulfill our signed agreement."

Leia had assumed a crumpled form in her chair during the past twenty minutes, but now she sat rigid, her eyes wide with horror. "What kind of accident was it?" Leia asked, thankful that no one had turned off her microphone yet.

Before anyone could protest Leia's interruption, Caylon answered the question. "It was a volcanic eruption set off by a faulty detonation device. The eruption wiped out the entire mining complex. Several hundred people died. Why is that important?"

Leia just knew that the accident had to have been planned. It had happened too soon after the Republic's economic records were stolen from the palace to be a coincidence. Of course Leia had no proof at all, and she wasn't about to bring up her wild claims in her current position of disfavor.

Seeing that Leia wasn't going to give him an answer to his question, and not really wanting one, Caylon proceeded. "The amount that we owe is about two hundred fifty million. I have the exact number here, but I don't think it is that important for the general assembly. I don't think we've ever had to address this type of financial situation before, so I'm not exactly sure on how to proceed. I guess if the head of the financial committee comes forward, I can give that senator the information."

No one in the assembly said anything. No one was even sure if there was a financial committee. Leia saw the mass confusion and knew that she had to do something. The Republic might not survive this crisis if it was handled wrong. The survival figures weren't even that good if it was handled right. "I need to speak," Leia said privately to Belsiphvin. Something in Leia's face transmitted the urgency that Leia felt, and the younger senator nodded.

Leia walked slowly over to the podium, and all eyes were on her, wondering what the former president had to say on this seemingly menial topic. "I know that I have no position in this assembly any more," Leia started, "but this situation is a very serious matter." Leia didn't know of any pretty way to say this. "The Republic does not have two hundred forty million credits at its disposal. We do not even have two hundred and forty thousand. The Republic has 55,763 credits."

The response was one of total laughter from all but two people. Leia remained stoic under the ridicule, and Snotzenexer admired her poise. The laughter continued, but it soon became forced as the people saw Leia's placid demeanor. After all noise had ceased, a deathly still had dropped over the entire assembly. "Anyone who can name one source of income for our government please step forward." Half of the senators were already thinking along these lines, but now that Leia spoke the words, many of them began to see what Leia was talking about. "I do not understand the full ramifications of this financial situation, but I know that several of you are educated in finances and might see a way out of this.

"I suggest that we end this session now and call a special council to address this problem. I can provide two individuals who will be able to explain everything. I also suggest that anyone who has any advanced knowledge concerning these matters should attend."

***

Half an hour later, Kerik and Drexin, the two men who had originally explained the situation to Leia, were standing at the head of a long table filled with very angry senators. The two keepers of the Republic's fortune were standing in front of a large screen, having just explained everything in about ten minutes.

There was no really good way to conduct this meeting and it showed as everyone tried to talk at once. The chaos continued for about ten more minutes before the doors to the council room opened and one more person was added to the meeting. Almost everyone noticed Snotzenexer enter, but few paid him any attention. The bank president stood quietly at the foot of the long table, not bothering to take one of the open chairs. He instead took in all the noise, catching a few of the comments as they were thrown into the mix.

"Let the banks try and collect their money. What are they going to do? We don't have it!"

"We do too! How much do you think a Calamarian cruiser is worth?"

"How much is our net worth?"

"Do you really think someone would want a battle cruiser to repay a loan?"

"How much do you think we owe?"

"We owe a little over seven hundred quadrillion credits," Snotzenexer said loud enough for everyone to hear. That comment ended the conversation for a moment.

"How do you know that?" someone asked him.

Snotzenexer merely gestured toward the screen on which the figures were plastered. Nowhere on the screen did a number appear that even closely resembled seven hundred quadrillion. All that existed was a listing of standing loans, according interest rates, and the time over which each loan was to be repaid. Drexin was frantically pounding away on his data pad, trying to confirm the number. He finally announced his result, "It is exactly seven hundred eight quadrillion, six hundred twelve trillion, four hundred seventy-nine billion, five hundred six thousand,-" Drexin paused as the entire number didn't fit on his display.

"-three hundred twenty seven credits," Snotzenexer finished for the economist. Drexin looked up, quite amazed at Snotzenexer's apparent mental calculation. Snotzenexer had of course computed the number before he had entered the room, in fact that was why he had been ten minutes late. He wasn't about to tell anyone else that. "I do not believe that the Republic owns enough merchandise to cover this amount or even a hundredth of it."

"It looks like your move on the Borcance Hull Construction Yards was a good one. The Republic is definitely a sinking ship."

Snotzenexer looked at the well-informed senator, glad that educated people were present. "Actually, if I knew the Republic was in such a dire situation, I wouldn't have sold at all," Snotzenexer lied. "The Republic needs money right now."

"What do you suggest we do?"

Those who knew who Snotzenexer was and what he had done respected him deeply. Those who didn't know him, were finding out from whispered inquires to those around them that they should listen to what he has to say. "I am here to try and solve your problem. I am willing to put the weight of the Varion Imperial Bank behind the Republic."

Everyone at the table gasped at this statement. Those who didn't fully comprehend how much weight the Varion Imperial Bank possessed gasped the loudest, feeling that their inadequate knowledge would best be compensated for by acting the most impressed.

"I will not lie to you by saying that I have seven hundred quadrillion credits at my disposal, or that I can even pay off a hundredth of the loans to which you have cosigned, but I'm sure you know that's not what the issue is."

"We need to restore confidence in our financial capabilities," someone agreed. "We need to show them that we are indeed capable of providing a safety net for accidents like the one on Xentin."

"That looks good on paper," someone else said, "but what if people see us as doomed ship caught in the pull of a black hole. If everyone starts scrambling for the escape capsules, with over seven hundred quadrillion people on board, you're going to run out of escape capsules pretty quick."

Snotzenexer couldn't help but smile at the clever analogy and decided to run with it. "We need to convince everyone that the only chance this ship has of escaping the gravity well is to maintain its total mass. All seven hundred quadrillion people need to stay on board in order for us to save everyone. Granted, the first few banks that try to cash in will be successful, but when the well runs dry, the rest of the galaxy will be out of luck. Not only will the banks be out of their money, but each planet or major corporation who was the recipient of the loan will suffer tremendously. Everyone will suddenly have bad credit, and no one will have any money.

"Right now the entire galactic economy is based on seven hundred quadrillion credits that don't exist. That is enough to send the entire galaxy into a depression. Once the banks understand this, there will be no chance of a major move against us."

The heads around the table began to nod in agreement to what Snotzenexer was saying. It all made perfect sense, largely because the Imperial admiral had planned it all out in great detail a month before. "I feel that it is also very important to start a means for the Republic to provide for itself. If there isn't a financial committee, I suggest that one be formed. We need to set up an income. This will mean that a tax rate will have to be put in place. There are several ways this can be done without a major burden to the people."

"Could you name a few?"

Snotzenexer kept his smile hidden deep inside. This is exactly what he wanted. There were probably ten different men in this room who were capable of doing what he was doing. The difference was they had all been caught so off guard by the situation, that they hadn't been able to compose their thoughts. Snotzenexer had been the only cool head and reasonable thinker. Because of this, he was now in total control of the situation, with everyone turning to him for answers. "I think this should probably be discussed in the soon to be formed financial committee."

"A committee of which you will be in charge," said a strong voice. The statement was made as if there was no other choice in the matter. "I think that we have somewhere to go with this crisis now, and, largely due to Senator Snotzenexer's help, we have a good chance of surviving it."

"There is a lot of paper work that needs to be done for this to work," Kerik said, speaking for the first time since his explanation of the situation earlier in the meeting.

"I will give you as much assistance as you need," Snotzenexer said. He had already prepared much of the information that would be needed and planned on having his senatorial secretary handle most of it. Snotzenexer didn't want to have to be bogged down with too much extra work. Things were moving along exactly as planned, and Snotzenexer needed to keep his schedule open to accommodate the many visitors he expected.

The admiral left the council chamber, after having been appointed as the chairman of the newly created financial committee, with a quick hop in his step. When he reached his office, he found that there was a video message waiting for him.

"Good afternoon, dear, or whatever time it is there," Sanson's image said. "I thought you might like to know that I caught the fox and all three birds are safely in cages. I hope that you are feeling well. Oh, I almost forgot. I ran into an old girlfriend that I had back when I went to the university. You remember Alice, I'm sure. She's the one who always wore green." Girlfriend? Always wore green? Mara Jade. "She sounded pretty intrigued about the fox we caught, and I think she might drop in to see it. Well, I hope I haven't taken up too much of your time. I know how busy you are. Try to see if you can come home sometime soon. Love you, bye."

Snotzenexer thought a while before recording his response. "I remember Alice. I'll tell you what, if she wants the fox, let her have it. Don't give it to her for free. I mean make sure that she pays for it and knows what it's worth. Wasn't Alice the one who tried to flirt with me all those years ago? I wouldn't mind seeing her, now that you mention it. Make sure that she knows where I am in case she wants to drop buy for a visit. Who knows, she might even bring the fox. Well, I have to get back to work now. Make sure you're careful with those birds. If they prove to be untamable, you might have to feed them to the cat. Talk to you soon."

****

Chapter 19 "The Great Escape"

The overall clad man was wiping some axle grease off his hands as he slid out from underneath the huge machine, his anti-grav creeper gliding smoothly over the stained permacrete. As his waist came out from underneath the vehicle, he extended the hydrospanner he was holding up and back. "Hey, Gerin, could you take this for a second." Moments later it was removed from his hand. "Thanks." The tech reached his now free hands up and grabbed onto the deck railing of the large ship lift. With one gigantic heave, the well-muscled man made his body vertical. With a practiced gesture, he kicked the creeper out from under him and his feet found solid ground.

"I'm glad we got that job over," he said as he turned. "Don't you agr-" his comment was cut short as Mara clubbed him over the head with the hydrospanner she had relieved him of only moments before.

Gerin was lying slumped against the tool cabinet where the former assassin had placed him. The assistant weighed over two hundred fifty pounds, and Mara had wanted a pair of overalls. She had decided to take her chances with the man under the four-wheeled mammoth, and it had paid off.

As she stripped the tech of his overall, Mara eyed up the big machine he had been working on. It was called a ship mover, and for good reason. Mara was in one of the huge tech hangars owned by the Varion Construction Yard. This hangar was located in their branch on Iom. This was where much of the very expensive and vital components of the huge ships the construction company produced were put together. Iom was very rich in much of the valuable resources needed to produce this equipment, but because of the huge over population of the planet, there were very important size restrictions placed on the expansion possible.

Mara was actually in a smaller section of the Iom complex. The engine factory and reactor containment cell construction facility were located on the other side of the Iom branch. She was in a small fighter and personal yacht repair hangar. The ship mover in front of her was used to move most of these ships from place to place inside the hangar. The beast of a machine had solid rubber tires that were a half a meter taller than she was and was powered by one of the clean fusion engines produced a kilometer away.

Mara finished zipping up the overall and was pleased to find with the cap that went with the outfit hiding her hair and the baggy fit of the overall, her identity was well concealed. She quickly hid both unconscious techs under the ship mover and hoped that no one would take it for a spin before the two men woke up.

Mara strapped on a tool belt and picked up a data pad to fiddle with as she idly roamed the complex. She figured that she had about a half-hour before her first two victims woke up and she needed to get off the planet somehow. The next big hangar in the complex manufactured some very large and complex electronic equipment. There were rows of tractor generators, weapon batteries, and repulser stabilizers stored on rows upon rows of reinforced durasteel shelving. Off in the corner of the hangar floor was a ship that was being manually loaded by two men.

Mara checked a clipboard hanging on a nearby bulletin board to see what the outgoing shipments for the day were going to be. After a quick examination of the lists, she saw that a shuttle with parts for ISD 17 was due to leave in about fifteen minutes. Mara had done a little research last night in one of the local eateries and found that with a little alcohol and tight clothes, she could get any tech to tell her what she wanted to know. It just turned out that everyone employed at the Varion Construction Yards was working over time trying to overhaul about thirty Imperial class Star Destroyers. ISD 17 sounded like exactly what she was looking for.

From her vantagepoint, Mara could see that the two men were trying to figure out how they were going to load a two hundred fifty kilogram shield modulator onto the ship. "We better get the tractor-lift."

As soon as the men departed, Mara raced over to the ship, checked to see if anyone was watching, and ran up the loading ramp. She hid herself behind a bin of conduit fittings and underneath a small tarp that was covering a few oily pieces of equipment. In short order, the two men returned, and Mara watched them levitate the huge generator with the use of the tractor-lift. They positioned it in the middle of the ship and far from where Mara was crouched.

She didn't have to wait too much longer before the ship started its engines, and she heard the foreman of the tech hangar giving the pilot some information. "Now when you get in range of the ship, you will receive a transmission asking you for your clearance code. The switch for the code is right here." Mara wanted to risk a peak at where the foreman was pointing but wouldn't be able to see the cockpit from where she was hiding anyway. "If they accept the code, they will proceed to lock onto you with a tractor beam and bring you in automatically. The ship is cloaked, so you won't be able to see it."

"Am I going to have to help them unload the ship," a female voice asked, "or do I just stand by and watch?"

A female pilot, Mara thought, thank goodness.

"No, you're not expected to do anything. They seem to be pretty secretive about everything, kind of like they don't want anyone else to know what they're doing."

"If they didn't want anyone else to know about it," the pilot asked, "then why did they hire the most talkative group of techs anywhere to help them with the repairs."

The foreman chuckled a little. "You've got me, Carrie. I guess they believe us when we tell them that we'll keep our mouths shut." They both laughed for a few seconds. "You've got to get going now. Try not to be too rough in the air. Most of those things back there aren't strapped down."

Mara tried to run through her game plan as the ship took off and made its way into the outer atmosphere of Iom. She had two weapons hidden on her in locations where she felt they were pretty safe in a pat down. Strapped to her inner thigh, underneath a pair of navy blue loose fitting pants, was a small blaster that she usually carried under her arm. Lying over her sternum, held in place by her figure, was a lightsaber that she never used. If any Imperial ever found either of those weapons in a search, he would have crossed a line that no one crossed with Mara and lived.

After the ship was in space and the pilot set the controls to auto pilot, Mara tensed for action. The female pilot got up from her chair and stretched, giving Mara a good idea of how tall she was. The two women were far from twins, but Mara felt that the uniform the pilot was wearing would fit her well enough to be convincing.

Mara watched in between piles of boxes, as the pilot moved to the refresher unit stationed right before the cargo hold. The former assassin crept out of her hiding place when she heard the door to the small room click closed. She took a moment to make sure there was no surveillance equipment on board and stationed herself right in front of the door to the refresher. It only took a few minutes before Mara heard the latch to the door begin to open. Mara positioned herself as out of view as she could, right next to the door as it slid open. The pilot walked out, oblivious to the assassin standing right next to the exit.

As soon as the pilot left the room fully, Mara sprung. Her right arm wrapped around the pilot's neck, and her hand latched on to the crotch of her left arm. Her left arm was bent in a ninety-degree position over the pilot's left shoulder, her left hand securing the top of the victim's head. The sleeper hold was like a vice, and Mara's grip was too tight around the pilot's throat for the weaker combatant to even make a sound, other than the initial gasp. The pilot's hands flailed backwards, trying to pry off Mara's grip, but the Force strong woman was far too powerful. Mara forced her opponent to her knees, and soon felt her body go slack as she passed out. Mara checked to make sure the pilot's vital signs were still strong and proceeded to tie her up.

After quickly changing clothes and storing the unconscious pilot in the refresher, Mara sat down in the cockpit behind the controls of the transport ship. A quick glance over the controls told her the auto pilot was going to bring her in range of the Star Destroyer and Mara wouldn't have to do any flying. Mara also remembered the foreman had told the former pilot that the ISD was going to want a clearance code and the switch for the code was somewhere on the control console. She searched for several minutes and finally had the choice narrowed down to two suspicious switches located underneath the main console.

There was about five minutes left in the short trip, and Mara could make out the asteroid field in the distance. The former assassin began to formulate how she could get away from her ship once it landed. She was going to an Imperial class Star Destroyer, but Luke had said that he was captive on a Super Star Destroyer. Mara would have to not only get away from the Imperial grunts, but also then find a way to get transportation to the SSD. Mara's mind went fluttering about the different possibilities before her as her eyes swept the cockpit and hold for clues as to what a good plan might be. Her eyes found the tarp that she had hid under and the greasy parts beneath.

She ran over to the pile of parts and smeared a bit of grease on her face and arms.

"Unidentified shuttle, you are entering restricted space. Please identify yourself or change your present course." Mara looked up from her grotesque make-up job as the intercom from the cockpit sounded. She ran back to the pilot chair, glanced at the two switches she had found earlier, shrugged her shoulders, and simply flipped both of them on.

Mara waited nervously as she absently wiped her dirty hands on her stolen clothes. "Shuttle 47 your are free to proceed. You may also shut off your landing lights. We will take you in by tractor."

Landing lights? Mara didn't remember turning on any lights. She glanced down at the two switches, which were still in the "on" position. Still not knowing which was which, she flipped them both off. Mara felt the tractor beam lock on and switched off the auto pilot, not wanting to strain her engines against the much more powerful tractor beam.

The shuttle was being steadily drawn toward a ship that was still invisible to Mara. As her forward motion slowed down and the ship began to move more vertically, Mara finally saw where she was headed. Above the shuttle, a small slot in space appeared and slowly widened as the cloacked bay doors opened. Mara enjoyed looking at the oddity in space. From her perspective it looked like a doorway to another dimension was opening. From the side, the two dimensional opening would be invisible, and even beneath it was hard to see because all the lights in the shuttle bay had been turned off. The doors opened only wide enough for the shuttle to slip through, and closed again as soon as Mara's ship was inside.

Mara rose as her ship nestled down on the closed doors and the interior lights in the shuttle bay turned on. She quickly checked her stolen attire to make sure that both her weapons were still hidden to casual observance. The former pilot of the shuttle, Carrie, Mara remembered, had been broader in the hips, chest, and shoulders, which helped in concealing her weapons.

As several men approached the ship, Mara looked around for a data pad or clipboard containing the inventory. She saw what she was looking for hanging on a hook over the vacant copilot seat. She walked into the hold, made sure that everything looked normal, and opened the loading ramp. Mara walked down the ramp before any of the men had a chance to walk up. "Here you go," Mara said and handed the clipboard to the man who looked in charge.

The Imperial looked at Mara for a while, sizing her up and then took the clipboard, pausing just long enough in the procedure to let her know that he was prepared to operate on his own time schedule. "Name," the man said instead of asking.

"Carrie Rodgen," Mara replied, hoping the pause between names didn't sound suspicious and that the name wasn't on the clipboard.

The Imperial looked down at the inventory for a while and nodded. "Okay, we'll unload it. Just stay out of the way."

"Do you mind if I find a refresher while you work? I'd kind of like to get some of this grease off of me, Captain." Mara recognized the uniform and tried to sound semi-respectful, though she didn't feel it. Before the captain answered, Mara thought she saw a smile start to spread across his face. She must look worse than she realized.

"Sure," he responded. "Drent," he called to one of the men, "come over here." As Drent walked up next to the captain, the higher rank whispered a couple of sentences to the underling.

Drent nodded at the end of the instructions and walked over to Mara. "Come with me." Mara didn't comment and merely fell in step behind the man. As the pair walked through the vast shuttle bay Mara noticed that the majority of the staff on hand was made up of clones. Mara tried to think of some way that she could impersonate someone else when everyone looked the same and a unique face would stick out like sore thumb.

As Mara and Drent walked away, Captain Edge blew out a sigh, allowing the smile that had threatened his face to show through now. He had his orders from Admiral Sanson herself and had nearly blown it. He glanced down at the clipboard once more and tapped the name written there with his forefinger. Carrie Welton. At least Jade had gotten the first name right, he thought to himself. He had been supposed to offer the refresher to Mara, but had forgotten. Almost as an after thought, he tapped his communicator twice, and continued with unloading the ship.

***

Drent stopped in front of the first female refresher that they came to outside of the shuttle bay. No words had been exchanged between the pair, and the young Imperial didn't say anything now as Mara walked past him into the room. There were two other women standing in front of a line of sinks one fixing her hair in one of mirrors while the other was washing a pile of brass bars. Neither paid Mara much attention but continued the conversation they must have been involved with before Mara had entered.

"So she is making you go over there just to discipline you?"

"Yea, apparently Sanson thinks that it isn't proper for a female officer to wear what I had on even though I was off duty."

"What a witch. So you have to go to the flagship just so she can berate you? Talk about an ego trip."

"It's all about intimidation, but I can stand up to her. I got to be at shuttle bay three in ten minutes. Sanson can't be kept waiting."

"Well good luck." With that, one of the women left the room.

Mara was busy washing off her arms in the sink, trying to pretend not to listen to the conversation, but couldn't help but imagine her luck. This woman was apparently going to the flagship, which had to be the Super Star Destroyer. Looking out of the corner of her eye, Mara eyed up her potential fake identity. The woman was a little shorter, but was the same approximate age and build. Mara's hair was, of course, red while this woman had brown hair, but Mara could pull it off.

The woman was done with her washing job and began to leave the refresher. Mara needed to follow her. She was probably going back to her quarters to pin the bars onto her uniform. Mara watched the woman leave, went over to the door, and paused. If the young tech hand that had brought her down here was still outside waiting for her, she would have a tough time convincing him to let her go after the other woman. Mara took a deep breath and activated the sliding door.

Drent was busy talking to the first woman who had left the refresher and both conveniently had their backs turned to Mara. Mara didn't bother to contemplate her luck, but walked quickly after the other woman. The corridors were mostly empty, and Mara's pilot uniform was not that far from what the Imperials used. Mara was relieved though when the brown haired woman's quarters turned out to be just a minute's walk from the refresher.

Mara paused outside of the door to the private quarters, hoping that the woman had not locked the door. Accessing little used Force skills, Mara concentrated on the woman's emotions behind the door. As soon as Mara felt confident that the woman was concentrating on something away from the door, she pressed the door panel. The door was not locked. Mara didn't pause to thank luck, but scampered inside quickly, allowing the door to close behind her.

Once inside, however, Mara took great pause at what she saw. The woman was standing in front of a mirror with her back to Mara adjusting what was clearly a wig. The hair not only moved abnormally on the woman's head, but there was a spare wig residing on a ceramic scalp next to her on the dresser. That wasn't the real reason Mara had paused, though. The woman was standing in front of a mirror that had a clear view of the door, but the woman had not even flinched as Mara entered.

As soon as the slightest hint of doubt crept into Mara's mind, everything that had happened so far clicked. The ease in which she had been allowed to use the refresher; the coincidental fact that this woman had mentioned that she was going exactly where Mara wanted to go in the short time the two of them had been together; the fact that Drent and the other woman had been conversing with both their backs to the refresher; and now the fact that this woman wore a wig, allowing Mara to hide her telltale red hair. All of this coupled with the fact that the woman was apparently ignoring an obvious intruder spelled trouble.

The woman finally turned around and seemed to notice Mara for the first time, though now that Mara knew the game, the acting was poor. "You saw me as soon as I entered. You had to. What is the game?" Mara asked.

The woman said nothing but reached for a communicator that was resting on the dresser next to her. Mara was faster, calling the small device to her with the Force. Mara also saw a holstered blaster sitting on a desk not too far from the woman and called that to her as well. Mara caught the blaster and leveled it at the woman before she could make any more attempts at alerting her authorities.

The blaster was being held with a calm assuredness that promised proficiency with the weapon, and the woman did not enjoy playing the part of the target. Mara motioned with the barrel of the weapon toward the bed against the side of the room, giving clear directions that Mara wished the woman seated. The woman was standing about five meters away from Mara and slowly made her way to the bed, keeping her hands out in the open.

As soon as the woman was seated in the middle of the bed, Mara relaxed, but only slightly. "What's the game?" she asked again.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Mara flipped the weapon's power setting with her thumb so that it was at minimum stun and shot the woman's leg. The prone figure yelped as the stun bolt hit her under her bent knee and made the whole leg go limp. The woman looked up furiously at Mara but toned down her glare as she was staring right into the barrel of her own weapon. "If I've got this right," Mara said slowly, "Sanson told you that I was going to try and steal your identity, so you must have prepared to be knocked unconscious or stunned. Whether I do the stunning one limb at a time or all at once is purely decided upon how well you cooperate with me. Now tell me if I'm right."

The woman nodded slowly, trying to think of some way she could play both sides of this odd game. "Sanson guessed that you would be coming for Skywalker, and she wanted to make sure you succeeded."

"Is this part of it too?" The woman looked confused at Mara's question. "Me figuring it out," Mara explained. "Is that part of it too? I mean if not, you guys did a poor job of hiding your intentions."

The woman shrugged her shoulders. "All I was told is that you were going to come after me and I should put up a decent struggle, but let you win."

Mara looked at the woman and wondered if she understood that she was talking to a former Imperial assassin, and Mara didn't need anyone to let her win. Although, breaking onto a Super Star Destroyer became a lot easier with help. "What's the catch? This is some kind of trap, right? You let me and Skywalker escape and then blow us out of the sky when we are flying away."

"Why bother with the charade?" the woman asked. "Why not just kill you as soon as you came on board and Skywalker as soon as we had captured him?"

Mara accepted the logic. "If you want me to succeed, what happens if I forgo your identity and just board the shuttle for the Super Star Destroyer as is? Are they going to stop me or blatantly ignore me?"

"If you want to look a gift rancor in the mouth, go ahead."

Mara considered her situation. If she did as she had just said, they would certainly have to apprehend her to keep some credibility, yet at the same time, Mara never liked to have anything without earning it. "If you want to know what I think," the woman started, "you should just go rescue your boyfriend and throw both of yourselves out an airlo-"

Mara shot her full in the chest, and the woman fell back on the bed, unmoving. After a few moments' thought, Mara changed into the uniform that was hanging next to the dresser and quickly donned the wig. Before leaving the room, she tried to use the Force to mask her identity, and succeeded slightly.

***

Admiral Sanson watched the security screen in front of her as Mara secured the wig and left the room. Sanson had wondered if Mara would figure it out and was glad that she had decided to go ahead with the rescue. Everything from this point on was pointless. Both sides knew what was going on and were only pretending not to for show. Sanson knew that Snotzenexer had wanted her to make the rescue attempt difficult while still ensuring its success, but Sanson wasn't about to risk the lives of her men for a stupid game. Besides, how in the world was she supposed to just allow one person to waltz into a Super Star Destroyer, rescue someone from maximum security, leave, and then make it look believable to the people involved. Sanson would much rather just demoralize Mara by mocking her efforts.

***

The shuttle settled down gently in one of the hangars of the Super Star Destroyer, the Dark Fist, and Mara began to wonder what she was doing. The pilot had readily agreed that she was who she pretended to be, which happened to be Lieutenant Shelby. Now Mara was going to have to sneak around the corridors of this Super Star Destroyer, all the while knowing that she was probably being watched by several different security devices. Neither side could let on that they knew what was going on, or else they would have a reason to kill each other.

Mara walked down the ramp of the shuttle and was quite surprised to see Admiral Sanson standing there waiting for her. Mara nearly fainted from shock when she saw that Luke was standing next to her. Neither woman said anything for a while, but both knew that the insult was fully understood.

"It seems that I found your copilot for you after all, though I think he wandered off a little more than you had guessed."

Mara was furious and couldn't find the proper words for rebuttal. Instead she only tried to avoid eye contact with Luke as the cuffed Jedi was transferred to her care. "Oh, by the way, the pilot you stored in the refresher unit in your ship is going to be fine, though she was a little embarrassed to be found by a bunch of tech hands in her underwear. Her last name was Welton, just in case you were curious."

Mara managed a smile back to the Admiral, but felt sorely defeated in this encounter. "Feel free to use this shuttle," Sanson beckoned toward the ship Mara had just disembarked, "if you didn't want to stay long. Just fly it to the bank and I'm sure it will find its way back to us some how."

Mara nearly killed Sanson right there. She was pretty sure that she could get her lightsaber out if its hiding spot before any of the guards could react, and at the distance of three meters that they stood apart, Mara would be able to cut the cocky admiral up into tiny pieces before anyone stopped her.

Luke tried not to look confused through this whole encounter and somehow managed to figure out that they were fighting about something. It appeared that Sanson was just going to let them go and Luke wasn't about to question the show of generosity. "What about the three pilots who came with me?" Luke suddenly remembered.

"I'm afraid they will have to stay with us a while longer," Sanson said. "Unless your female counter part wants to try her hand at an actual rescue." As if on cue, twelve of the guards who were standing behind Sanson raised and activated their blaster rifles.

As Mara looked at the dozen weapons trained on her, all control left her. "One day, in the near future, we will meet again," she fumed, "and when we do, you'll wish that you had killed me now." Mara wanted to say more, but she felt stupid threatening an Imperial Admiral on her own ship and in front of a squad of armed troops. Instead of continuing her verbal tirade, Mara spun on her heel and reentered the shuttle. Luke paused a while, still not wanting to accept that Sanson was just going to let him go.

"Go ahead, Jedi Master, we're at peace remember."

***

On board the ship, Luke and Mara were sitting as far away as possible while the pilot chauffeured them back to Iom. Mara had removed the wig and the lightsaber she had been carrying. Luke had spent a few moments taking the shackles off his wrists and looked at the lightsaber lying on the table, remembering that the Imperials still had his.

"Go ahead and take it," Mara said. "I never use it. Besides, wasn't it your father's? You should have it anyway."

The lightsaber leaped off the table and into Luke's hand. He examined it a while before speaking. "What was all that about back there?"

"The Admiral just wanted to make sure that I knew where I stood in the power structure of the universe, that's all."

After a pause, "You know I didn't mean for you to come and rescue me."

"Don't worry," Mara steamed and stood up, "if you recall, all I did was pick you up." She started to storm out of the room but stopped. "What do you plan to do now?" she asked, somewhat calmed.

"I need to go back to Coruscant and stop Snotzenexer from taking power in the senate. The Imperials were kind enough to let me watch the senate meetings from my cell."

"Don't you understand, Skywalker?! That's what they want you to do! They wouldn't have just let you go if you could thwart their whole plan by a trip to help out your sister. They have something else up their sleeve."

"Do they?" Luke asked with a tone of voice that suggested he had given it some thought too. "It's like a game of Flamtok. When your opponent makes some ridiculous, sacrificial move you immediately think that they're crazy. I mean why would anyone sacrifice their empress for no apparent benefit. Then you look at it again wondering if they have some trick planned. You can't see any, but you know that you are playing against an experienced player so instead of taking the piece, you make an entirely different move. All the while your opponent had nothing special planed other than hoping that you would think that they did. This allows them to press their supposed sacrifice into an advantage. It's a bluff, but a bluff that is hidden well enough that when you see it, you don't think it obvious."

Mara thought about this for a while. "And if there is a catch . . ."

"Can you see one?" Luke asked. "Honestly, how could they benefit from letting me go?"

"Then why did they do it?" Mara asked, still not convinced. "We keep coming back to the point that they must have something planned to get rid of you for good."

"Or they just want us to think they do?"

Mara was getting sick of this conversation, seeing that they weren't getting anywhere. "What if they knew that you would think that they would want you to think they had something planned. There is no end to this line of reasoning. Just do what ever you think will be best, but remember that with Snotzenexer at the helm, everything that they do has a good reason behind it."

***

The door opened and blaster rifles led two officers into the cell. Admiral Sanson strolled in after the armed guards and had two more men behind her. She really didn't expect too much trouble from her prisoners, but one could never be too cautious. She had thought about keeping the three members of the 185th in separate cells but she decided that she wanted them to discuss things a bit before she presented them with her proposal.

Vince, Bep, and Jon rose from their respective cots, which were far too short for their long frames and returned Sanson's level gaze. None of them even gave the guards and their weapons a second look, knowing that Sanson had them by a very tight leash, and she would be the source of any action. Vince was the elected leader of the group, and he moved to the front of the trio, constructing a crude triangle. Sanson did likewise with the two men who had been in front of her and the two remained silent for some time.

"I just let Skywalker go free," Sanson broke the silence.

Vince was a little startled by this. He had thought that Luke had been the main reason they had been captured. She wants us to believe that we are their main concern, Vince thought to himself but said nothing.

"You, of course, do not have to cooperate with us, in which case I plan on ending your lives as quickly as possible. I assume you three plan to stand up to any type of torture or interrogation sessions that we prepare, so we feel it would be useless to try to extract the information we want through such superficial means. It is simple, you will tell us how all of the advanced technology on your ships work or we will kill you. I'll have you know that I am no novice with mechanical and electrical systems and probably know much more about it than you do, but your ship design is so haphazard that it makes very little sense. Oh, don't worry, we'll figure out the system in time, and have in fact got a lot of it dissected already."

Vince looked at her with an unchanging face while inwardly trying to figure out an easy way to get out of this. The easiest way would be to lie about everything and hope that the Imperials were as dumb as they had always been. Looking at Sanson, Vince knew that she wasn't bluffing and her technological knowledge was far too advanced to fall for any lies they might be able to concoct about their ships. The true question was: "Is the technology worth dying for if it only kept the Imperials from it for a short while?"

Sanson looked Vince over and saw that she wasn't going to get a definitive answer from the intelligent youth. Instead, she looked back to the other two members of the group. From the monitored conversations that the three had had in the cell over the past day, Sanson had a good idea of the power structure in the group of three. Vince was the leader, Bep was the level headed figure that kept Vince and Jon from tearing each other's throats out, and Jon was the cocky pilot who accounted for the majority of the group's battle success. While all three were technologically inclined and all better pilots than anyone Sanson had at her disposal, they each had their strengths. Vince was the mechanical wizard, while Bep worked with the computer components of the ships. Jon helped some with both but excelled in the actual flying.

"What do you think, Jon boy?" Sanson asked, picking on the weak link in the logical group.

"I think you should give us a chance at escape too," he said quite readily. "How about a little one on one? You and I fight. If I win, we get to leave with our ships. If you win we have to spill our knowledge."

Sanson laughed at the cocky youth and decided to take him up on his challenge. "Okay, Jon. You want to fight, step up."

Jon walked to the front of the group and Vince paused only slightly as Jon past him. Vince wanted to stop him, but at the same time, he wanted to see what Sanson was going to do. If she played foul, it would ruin her stance of absolutism, yet at the same time, he couldn't see how she would win other wise.

Jon stood a meter in front of the much shorter admiral, wondering what he was supposed to do. The woman in front of him was close to half a meter shorter and probably barely weighed half as much he did. Sanson looked up at him and smiled. She put her pathetically small fists up in front of her as if she expected to exchange blows with her opponent. Jon did likewise, almost laughing at the woman in front of him.

Sanson came on quick and furious, but Jon merely brushed the harmless punches away with his hands and arms. A few of the frantic punches landed on him, but Jon barely noticed. Jon was trying to decide if he should actually punch back when Sanson's left knee came up hard and fast into the outside of Jon's thigh. The tall pilot hadn't been ready for the move, and the admiral's narrow knee gave Jon a very deep bruise upon impact.

Sanson kept on the attack by turning to kick the inside of the wounded leg just above the ankle. Jon's leg had buckle slightly from the pain of the first blow, and he had to widen his stance to stay on his feet. During the turn to the left, Sanson brought her right fist up in an explosive punch aimed right at the bottom of Jon's rib cage. Her target was at shoulder level for the smaller fighter, and she felt a bone crack as the punch landed home.

Jon grimaced under the pain and decided that it might be okay to strike a woman this one time. Both of his fists swept in front of him in an attempt to either punch or grab his opponent. Sanson had been ready for the move and leaped backward, deftly avoiding the lumbering move. As soon as Jon's fists passed in front of her, Sanson stepped back in, lashing out with her booted foot in between Jon's wide stance. The tip of Sanson's boot landed solidly, and the other six men in the room winced for Jon's sake. The tall pilot's weak leg couldn't handle this latest blow, and Jon fell to his knees. Sanson had been waiting for her taller opponent to come down to her level and executed a trained spin kick aimed at Jon's head. The heel of her military boot struck Jon's temple, and he fell like a tree, out cold.

Sanson stood back from the unconscious pilot, regarding the other two captives in the room. She knew that she wouldn't be able to take either of them in a fight, nor would she be able to beat Jon again, her element of surprise gone in a flurry of witnessed prowess.

Vince looked at his fallen friend, and realized that other than the cracked rib, he was not seriously hurt, and there was nothing he could do for him now. "How about a compromise?" Vince asked.

Sanson wasn't one to deal, but since she figured that the worst case scenario - them choosing to die rather than part with their knowledge - would still provide the Empire with the knowledge, only a little later, a compromise would likely add something to the deal that they didn't already have. "I'm listening."

"We get to look at your technology, and then tell you how to improve your current ships up to the level of ours. That will allow you to achieve our level of fighting ability without having to build yourself a whole new fleet. Anything you see on our ships, we will try to implement on yours. Whether they turn out to be the same design is immaterial if they perform the same. In exchange, we earn back our lives and our ships."

Sanson saw what Vince was getting at maybe even before Vince did. By designing the improvements on the Imperial ships, Vince and Bep could also implement flaws that only they would be able to see, resulting in Imperial slaughter during the first encounter. At the same time, if she let these boys do all the work, and then simply disposed of them anyway, she would gain whatever legitimate improvements they had made, plus still have their ships at her disposal if she wanted to make further changes.

"Okay, I'll give your combat challenged friend here a day to recover and then you guys can go to work." The admiral gave one more look at the small squadron and left the cell, giving the boys time to try and think up a way to get themselves out of this mess.

****

Chapter 20 "The Snotzenexer Miracle"

Lando and Han looked at each other across the stimsuline table in the Solo living quarters. Trince had arrived about an hour ago, and Han had finally come to grips with the fact that the trip down into the lower levels of Coruscant was going to have to be made. "It'll just be us three?" Lando asked.

"We can't really bring an army down there, Lando."

"What about Chewie's life debt?"

"We finally convinced him that he was relieved of that a long time ago," Han said as he took a sip from a mug of stimsuline and placed it back on the table. "Besides, he's got fur. That might not mean much to you now, but once you get down to about level 30, you'll realize that Chewie would have to shave himself bald to remove the smell he would get after five minutes."

"What are we talking about exactly?" Trince asked for the first time, realizing that he was going along because of the danger involved.

"Where we are going makes a sewer look like a mansion. There will be little to no lights, a constant odor, and water, or some type of liquid everywhere. The occupants of the lower levels are more predator than human. I believe that some of them haven't seen the light of day their whole lives. Aside from the human population, there are actual beasts down there that are some of the most vicious territorial creatures anywhere."

"Sounds like home, right Solo?" Trince, a fellow Corellian, asked jovially.

"Hardly. You must have grown up in Corin Province."

"Well, this job won't finish itself," Lando said, getting up from his seat on a couch. Han sighed deeply and rose also. He and Lando had searched for an hour to find clothes to wear. They had finally found some of Han's old smuggling disguises, full of secret pockets to hold knives, picks, or small blasters. They had given Trince a similar outfit, though the taller youth didn't wear it well. Lando carried a small bag over his shoulder that carried some of the electrical equipment they would need to access the mainframe. Han had made sure that they were tightly sealed in plastic coating, not knowing what the elements down bellow would do to the equipment. Together, the three of them made there way out of the palace and to the first lift they found and headed down.

***

The financial activity in the galaxy was a little frantic to say the least. After the senate hearing that had revealed the Republic's monitory position there had been some very worried investors. All of the private citizens who had stock in organizations related to the Republic began to make a move to jump ship. Large farming complexes that operated for the Republic found that they had gone from large profit organizations to bankrupt in a matter of hours.

The newscasts reported what had occurred though they failed to capture the true nature of the problem. The farming complexes, ship building facilities, infrastructure companies, and clothing producers might have the Republic's name in their title, but in reality, their financial stability was entirely separate from that of the government. There were no private investors with money in the actual government. The only actual influence that this revelation had on the financial structure of the galaxy was the way it influenced the money lending that had occurred with the Republic, its off-shoots, and the banks who had lent the money.

The Galactic Bank in the Detsgor system with President Overn at the head had been the first to make a move against the Republic, and a few of the other banks followed suit because of the concerns of nervous investors. Most of the larger banks held off due to the fact they realized the money they wanted to collect wasn't there. What many banks did was cancel credit to those borrowers who had signed with the Republic as their cosigner.

Many of the banks might have continued the run on the almost fifty-six thousand credits that the Republic had, but Snotzenexer put an end to that. The first move that Snotzenexer made in the crises was to remove all stock he held in any bank that canceled its loan with the Republic. The reaction to the move was two-fold. All of the intelligent investors (the only ones that mattered) realized that Snotzenexer had put up his bank's considerable financial weight behind the Republic and if anything, investments in the Republic were more sound than ever. By selling his stock in the banks, Snotzenexer was able to make his presence in this whole mess known to all involved.

The second reaction concerned the fact that everyone knew a bank in Snotzenexer's disfavor, was not a bank to have stock in. The result was that each of the unfortunate banks who had canceled their loans with the Republic, were suddenly so deep in debt to their stock holders, as a result of having to pay off so many withdrawals at once that many of them dissolved into paperwork. It was rather ironic, Snotzenexer thought, that the reward he gave President Overn and his bank for doing exactly what he wanted was to put them out of business. President Overn took it rather well. He was found the next day with the back of his head blown off from a blaster under the chin.

Making his second move of the crises, Snotzenexer proceeded to reinvest his money back into the banks he had just destroyed. With the heads of most of the organizations cut off, Snotzenexer soon owned over fifty percent of stock in each of the banks and immediately merged them with his own enterprise which was now growing faster than anyone could have imagined possible.

What had at first been a run on the Republic, now became a scramble to see who could jump on to the growing financial superpower. Stocks that had been sold for a few thousand credits were now being purchased for tens of thousands. The industries that had gone under during the initial moments of the crises now found themselves getting financial attention from sectors that hadn't known of their existence a few hours earlier.

Of all the miracles that Snotzenexer had pulled off earlier, this one would go down as the biggest move in the history of galactic banking. After it was all done, Snotzenexer had actually created over two hundred trillion credits out of thin air. The banks that had canceled the credit line with the Republic had turned what had been an imaginary debt into a reality. By merging all of those unfortunate banks with his own, Snotzenexer had essentially removed that debt from existence. The Republic's financial structure, which was now actually the Varion Imperial Bank, had owed all of these banks the two hundred trillion, but now they owed it to themselves, thus removing it from existence, and relieved the actual borrowers from the burden of continual payments. Some people could argue that the debt was still there as an internal loss, but with all of the gains Snotzenexer was obtaining, the internal losses were lost in the shuffle.

Something else that was lost in the shuffle was that Snotzenexer now controlled almost a twentieth of the entire galactic financial system. As Sandie Hollins, former President Overn's secretary, had said, he had far more power than any man had the right to posses. The problem was that the rest of the galaxy was pleased to give it to him. Also like Sandie (who now worked for Snotzenexer) had said, he hadn't abused the power, which would have been very easy for him to do.

The final result of this was that the Republic had received over fifty new applications for membership. There was one thing left to be done, and everyone simply assumed it to be formality. In truth, Snotzenexer was not only the president of the Varion Imperial Bank, but also of the Republic and, likely, the galaxy.

***

The senate chamber was packed. The floor was reserved for the senators but there were also balconies that surrounded the chamber for spectators. Usually only about fifty to one hundred people filed those balconies, and most of those were members of the local university who wished to go into law upon graduation. Today, the security found that they had to sell tickets for admission. The building supervisors found that they had to set up repulser supports to keep the balconies from collapsing under the weight of the throng that packed the standing room only crowd.

Many of the observers were from other sectors that had flown in simply to see the man who had changed the entire structure of the galaxy with a few simple moves. The senators themselves were in a unique situation. There had only been one transfer of power in the history of the Republic and that had been between Mon Mothma and Leia. That had been back when the Republic was called the New Republic and had been considerably smaller.

Normal procedure that had been set up in preparation for a time like this required nominations to be made for a replacement. There would then be several elections and a rigorous selection process before a new president would be installed. The entire senate realized that they didn't really have a whole lot of choice in the matter of whom they could elect. The public would probably riot if anyone but Snotzenexer was chosen as Leia's successor. The one thing that made this an easy pill to swallow was the fact that almost all of the senators thought he was the best choice regardless of what the public thought.

Senator Belsiphvin, Senator Trent, Senator Garrinj, and Senator Snotzenexer sat in the small council room with the din in the adjoining assembly hall very audible through the thick council room walls.

"We are in a unique situation," Belsiphvin started, not really knowing how else to begin this brief meeting. "You are going to be elected as the next president of the Republic, the question we have for you is, 'Do you want the job?'"

Snotzenexer smiled at the question. "Do I have a choice?"

Senator Garrinj, one of the older and most respected senators while also being a former Leia supporter cleared his throat before speaking. "Not really, although you do have a choice in how you serve as president. You can decide to make this position temporary, or permanent. You can decide to be simply be a figurehead and have a ruling council, or you can hold the same position that Organ-Solo held. It's up to you."

"I feel up to the challenge," Snotzenexer replied. "I feel that I can take the Republic out of the confusion it has existed in for the past month so we can better structure the government to meet the needs of the galaxy."

"Good answer," Senator Trent said. "You would do well to always promote the future as opposed to the here and now. Everyone will want to now how you did what you just did, but you should try to focus more on what we will do."

Snotzenexer was surprised by this old man's wisdom, and outwardly nodded his head in agreement. "We just wanted to meet with you privately before we entered the public spectacle that exists out there," Belsiphvin said. She went on to explain some of the proceedings that would take place. Snotzenexer nodded in all the appropriate places and interjected when necessary. After all the details were handled, the foursome made their way into the main chamber.

It took a long while to quiet all of the people in attendance, and Belsiphvin was finally able to start the performance. "We are meeting here today to elect a new president of the Republic." Yelling of Snotzenexer's name floated around the chamber and Belsiphvin requested one of the building supervisors to erect the electronic sound barriers over the balconies to try and deaden the noise they were producing. There were plenty of speakers in the balcony sections so the proceedings could still be heard by the audience but not vice versa.

"We will start this procedure by accepting nominations for the presidency."

The senate floor remained quiet for a while. This was the key moment, for if no one nominated Snotzenexer, then it would be quite impossible for him to be elected. Senator Haln stood up and was allowed to speak. "I nominate Senator Belsiphvin of the planet Encoust in the Enco system."

This was expected. "Is there a second to that nomination?" Belsiphvin asked. A few people spoke up. "Nomination is accepted by the Senate. Are there any more nominations?"

Senator Quenthor stood up with a lot of unnecessary bravado. "I nominate Senator Snotzenexer of the planet Iom in the Varion system."

Behind the electronic sound barrier, a cheer came from the balconies. "Is there a second to that nomination?" About eighty people spoke up. "Nomination is accepted by the senate. Are there any more nominations?"

The senate chamber was deathly silent. Several people expected Trent or even Leia to be nominated, but no one else spoke up. Belsiphvin waited to the point of embarrassment, and then closed the nominations. Snotzenexer had been sitting in the front row, but now made his way to the front of the hall.

"I would like to start the nominee selection process," Belsiphvin said once Snotzenexer had arrived next to her, "by declining the nomination given me." The crowd's reaction was subdued. This was, after all, expected.

Snotzenexer exchanged places with Belsiphvin and adjusted the microphone for his slightly taller frame. Everyone in the hall was on the edge of their seats, eagerly awaiting for what most people felt was the most important moment in the Republic's short history. "I accept the nomination offered -" was all he could get out before the hall erupted with noise, sound barriers or no sound barriers.

It took a while for the chamber to regain its order before Snotzenexer continued. "I realize that this process lacks some of the formalities required by the senate's regulations, so I would like to make this time open for senators to ask questions regarding my future as president."

The first question was slow in coming. "Senator, how are you going to ensure that the financial crises that struck the Republic recently won't happen again?"

Snotzenexer briefly played with the idea of answering the questions he was going to receive truthfully. He quickly decided against it. He didn't think that an answer such as, "Well, since I created the first crises, and I don't plan on repeating the action, . . ." wouldn't be too well accepted. "Several things will keep the past in the past. The first is that the public is now much more informed as to the causes and effects of what almost happened. Second, by implementing new policies, such as reduction in military and increase in trade, coupled with the creation of a modest tax rate will ensure that the Republic will never again have a balance that even remotely resembles what it is now, or was. Also, as of yesterday, the Republic holds a new position with the banks of the galaxy and loans in the future will be given out by the Republic and not for the Republic. Having a government as a cosigner on a loan was a bad idea from the start."

"Senator," a new question came, "you mentioned creating a moderate tax rate. There are probably over a trillion future citizens in attendance and watching at home who will have to fork over that tax. Could you please explain what you meant by moderate?"

"Right now, the Republic operates without a tax rate. Because of this lack of income, they rely one hundred percent on donations from members with regard to food, ship construction, and other necessities. By incorporating these industries into the actual government, instead of keeping them privatized allows the government to no longer have to rely on support from its members. This lessens the load for everyone involved and frees a lot of resources that were formerly tied up. By taking a small fraction of this created excess as taxation, the burden for the people will actually be less than it is now."

"Senator, you said that you want to deprivatize the businesses in the Republic. Does this mean that you want the government to seize everything?"

"Not even remotely," Snotzenexer answered. "Right now the ship yards that construct the Republic's shuttles are not actually part of the government. The organization that controls the grounds here on Coruscant is not even pat of the government. There are organizations out there that were designed to support the Republic but actually hurt it, because any profit that is made is never seen by the government. These are the businesses that I am talking about deprivatizing. Businesses that never had any right to be privatized in the first place. Who ever heard of a government that didn't even build their own ships?"

"Senator, you stand to make a lot of money by becoming president, don't you?"

"Yes, I do."

The brevity of this response startled the crowd. A few people even began to wonder if Snotzenexer wasn't taking on this presidency for personal gain.

"Senator, could you please explain to everyone here what you meant by your last answer?"

"Gladly. By implementing the changes I have suggested, mainly incorporating certain industries into the government, reducing excess waste, and increasing trade, the economic growth in the galaxy should increase dramatically. With an increase in the economy comes a more ready willingness to invest new found riches, which in turn means that there will be a larger cash flow through the stock systems which can only help the banking industry, of which I am a member."

"So, Senator, what you meant to say was that not only you are going to make a lot of money, but in general the effects of your implemented policy will increase personal income throughout the galaxy."

"That is correct, but that was not what was asked of me. I apologize for answering a poor question in a misleading manner."

This brought a small wave of laughter to the senate floor. A few more questions floated up to Snotzenexer, all of which he answered flawlessly. After about an hour of questions, the actual election took place, and much to everyone's total lack of surprise, Snotzenexer was easily elected to the position of President of the Republic.

***

Anakin Solo sat in front of the monitor, waiting patiently for his long distance call to connect. When it finally did, Master Streen was seated at the academy's computer. "Greetings Anakin. I hope everything is going well for you. How may I help you?"

Anakin quickly filled in his teacher on what had transpired in the Denorid system and how he thought it was possible to lessen the impact of the destruction done to the fragile worlds. "What I need," Anakin said, finishing his request, "is more Jedi here to help me."

"You know that we are busy rebuilding the academy," Streen countered though inwardly he was already making a mental list of all the capable students that he could send to help Anakin. He just wanted to see how the young Jedi would respond to reluctance.

"Yes I know, but this is exactly the type of situation for which Master Skywalker had been preparing when he built the academy. The lives of many people as well as their homes might be saved if we are able to act quickly."

"I agree," Streen replied, surprising Anakin with his sudden turn-about. "How many students do you think you need to help you?"

"As many as can be spared that you feel are up to the task," Anakin replied eagerly. Teacher and student continued to discuss the possibilities until they had settled on eight students who would fly immediately to meet Anakin in the Denorid System.

***

Leia paced nervously in her apartment as the palace droids worked around her. The droids were busy packing up her and Han's belongings so that the two of them could move out of the presidential suite they had been living in. The senate had told Leia that she no longer had a claim to the luxury accommodations, and if she no longer wished to be a senator, she would have to find permanent residence somewhere else. She had thought that with Han retired and the kids off doing their own thing most of the time, the two of them could go somewhere nice to live out the rest of their lives together, ignoring the Republic entirely. Leia knew that Han had a heap of money saved away for just this type of situation.

Leia thought that they could go to Corellia and purchase a large chateau on the coast. Thoughts of lounging on the beach under the sun were very comforting, and simply the idea of having nothing to do with the government was very relaxing.

Maybe it was for the best. Leia had been over-stressed lately and the workload was far in excess of anything she could have predicted when she had taken the job from Mon Mothma. Besides, Snotzenexer was perhaps the best person for the job, and Leia felt the government was in very safe hands with him at the helm.

At least that was how she had felt ten minutes ago. Since then, she had read a very disturbing message from Luke. Her brother had told her that he was coming immediately to Coruscant because something terrible was happening to the Republic. He said that he couldn't elaborate in the message because the information was far too sensitive, but Leia had already begun to guess what was happening.

Snotzenexer had been from the Varion system, the same system where Luke had been checking on the rumors of Imperial activity. By all appearances, Snotzenexer was what he said he was. He definitely acted like an important bank president and had shown no interest in controlling the military like any good Imperial would have done. Still, there was this twinge of doubt in the corner of Leia's mind that told her Snotzenexer was not all that he appeared to be.

In addition to her worries about Snotzenexer, Leia was scared stiff about Han. He had left the previous day when it appeared that the Republic was on the brink of financial ruin. If he had waited another six hours, he would have been able to witness the "Snotzenexer Miracle" as people were calling it. Leia didn't fully understand what had happened but she knew that Han, or at least Lando, would have figured it out and seen that there no longer needed to be a trip down into the lower levels of the city. She just hoped that they would be all right.

***

"Why didn't you tell me it was going to be this bad?" Lando asked for the tenth time that morning.

The trio had found a place to sleep the previous night around level fifty, which was the last level that Han had still felt some level of comfort in. There had been no express elevator to take them all the way down to the bottom, in fact, the elevators hadn't taken them very far down at all. Han remembered the last time he had ventured down into the bowels of the city over thirty years ago. Then he had been able to jump from elevator to elevator to evade the imperial troopers. Since then, the Republic had made an effort to restrict travel in the lower levels and no lift or elevator went below the civilized levels.

Right now they were about ten or fifteen levels bellow the rat hole of a hotel where they had slept, and Lando found that this was the same level of altitude in which the clouds existed. The clouds hung in the air like an annoying fog, covering everything with moisture. The dripping noises where without end and the resulting mold from the lack of sunlight made it feel like they were in a rain forest rather than a massive durasteel maze.

"I mean if you had told me it was going to get this bad I never would have come."

"Just shut up, Lando," Han replied to his friend's complaints for the first time. "Not only did I tell you that it was going to get this bad, but it will get much worse."

Trince tried to keep is laughter inaudible, but found he had to cough to cover his mirth. The three of them were walking through the dank corridors alone. There didn't seem to be anyone else in the deep recesses of the underworld. Han had told them otherwise, claiming that there were countless vagrants hiding in the darkness of the beaten paths, waiting to jump lost tourists or fellow residents. Trince had kept his senses alert, knowing that it would be up to him to warn them of an unseen attack.

To pass the time as they continued to search for quick ways down, Trince more thoroughly examined their surroundings. Each one of the levels that they passed through had once been the top level of the city, and each of them showed signs of having been open to the sunlight. There were buildings that had been built several stories tall that were now surrounded by levels that went up in the same increments as the floors in the building, giving every floor in the former skyscraper access from the walkways. Since there had not been doors fashioned into the upper floors of the buildings, the local residents had found it necessary to create their own, leaving gaping holes in the long abandoned buildings. They were long abandoned by the companies that had erected them, but by looking through the holes in the walls, signs of depraved life could be seen.

The actual levels were built with varying height with many different styles. Many of the lower levels had the same height as the buildings around them so that the whole system was the same, but several levels that had been built to allow large open spaces within the city. For example, the trio had run across a huge cavity that had previously contained a sporting arena and now simply supported a large battleground for opposing gangs.

Most of the construction was made of durasteel, but some levels had thick permacrete pillars for supports. The floor was also a durasteel/permacrete mix that did not hold up well under the moldy conditions. As soon as the levels had begun to pile up on each other, it had become apparent that a lighting system would be needed. The remnants of such an electrical networking was still visible in most of the sections, but few were salvageable and even fewer worked.

Han had made sure that they had brought glow rods down with them, knowing what kind of lighting conditions, or lack there of, they would be facing. He also made sure that they never used them, not wanting to highlight their passage through the underworld. The glow rods would be saved for an emergency.

For the most part, the trio was left alone. Their relatively clean clothes and well-fed frames painted them as obvious intruders, but their tall, confident statures also painted them as not your average lost tourist. It wasn't until they dropped bellow level twenty that they encountered their first emissary from the underground. By now all natural light was gone and small flickers of flame or some kind of artificial flight could occasionally be seen through the chaotic structured surrounding them. Everything was now covered with moss, mold, or slime, and all of the adventurers were soaking wet with putrid water.

Trince first spotted the young boy, as the Jedi was the only one whose eyes could function adequately in the dark environment. He motioned the youth's position to his companions, and both Han and Lando were keen enough to pick out the boy once he was pointed out. The boy too was no novice to surveillance and knew when he had been seen and simply made himself disappear. Even the Jedi couldn't decide which way the youth had gone.

"We should be getting visitors soon," Han said just loud enough to be heard. Lando understood what he meant. They were far too deep to still be mistaken for lost tourists. They were now entering the arena of very territorial animals. It was okay to think of the residents of this underworld as animals because when they appeared in a group of four a few minutes later, that was the first parallel that came to Lando's mind.

The four "men" stood about one and a quarter meter, but might have been closer to one and a half if they would ever straighten their bent spines. They gave the appearance of old men hunched with age, only their movements where quicker than the eye could follow. They had simply appeared in front of the visitors without so much as a sound, each one carrying a small knife that failed to glint in the small lights they carried. Lando wondered if the effectiveness of the weapons came from the cuts they would produce or the diseases they would transmit.

Their faces were hidden beneath the shadows produced by the small lights they carried under their chins. Their clothes were made of some patchwork animal skins that looked to have come from some large, mutant rat. They wore the same skins on their feet. Though their faces were hidden, their eyes seemed to glow with a soft red light as if the inhabitants of this dark world had developed some type of infravision.

One in the group, and the largest of the thin-limbed creatures, stepped forward cautiously. Han couldn't really tell if the motions were due to caution or if the man had crept around these surroundings so long that he knew of no other way to move.

"Vat duu yooo vant?" the man said in barely understandable basic.

Han decided to take charge of the group. "We want to pass through unharmed."

"Ooooooh, is dat awl," the man chuckled and turned to his companions, saying something quick and incomprehensible. "We dinks yooo pay fiwst."

"What do we have that could possibly be of value to you?" Han asked, knowing the answer to his question as one of his blasters was pressing snugly to his side.

"Yooo have weepons."

Han lifted his hands away from his side and shook his head in a convincing gesture. "We can takes dem off yooo copses as well as yooo can give dem to us." At this threat, Trince moved to stand next to Han.

Han felt a measure of assurance with the Jedi in close proximity and didn't back down from the hunched over man in front of him. "And we can just as easily walk past your corpses as you can let us pass."

The leader of the gang flipped his wrist and threw his knife so fast that Han could barely detect the motion, but his tuned reflexes had him dodging to the side from where the knife would have flown past. Instead, Trince reached his hand out and snatched the knife from the air. The eyes of all four hunchbacks were glued to the Jedi as he slowly broke the blade from the handle in the same hand with which he had caught the knife.

The leader of the gang had produced another knife as soon as he had thrown his first one. "Dus yooo vant to fight?"

"We want to pass," Han repeated.

The small man leaped forward, halving the six meters that had separated the groups and came up short in his charge as he found a lightsaber leveled at his throat. The blade looked extremely ominous in the dark environment, and the light went quite a ways toward hurting the attacker's eyes. The leader tried to bat the weapon aside with his knife, but Trince held his blade rigid with the Force, and the knife was sheared in two. This second attack on the integrity of the band's weapons gave the leader pause. He backed up a couple of steps.

Trince didn't let him gain any maneuvering room and walked forward with him. "Will you let us pass?" The lightsaber lit up the man's head and Trince could see the animal like fear through the scratchy hair that covered the man's face. The fear looked so genuine, that Trince didn't see the third knife coming from the leader's pants. Nor did the Jedi see it fly through the meter that separated the pair. But he did feel the pain as the blade sunk deep into his side.

Han wished that the cocky Jedi hadn't been so bold, but now he could tell that only one group would walk away from this encounter in tact. The other three members of the gang surrounded Trince as the wounded Jedi tried to orient himself for battle. Han and Lando found that they were being ignored and quickly pulled their blasters. "Stun?" Lando asked, as he thumbed his weapon to the said setting.

Han shook his head, "You won't be able to stun them." Han fired at the leader, his bolt flying past Trince, through the surrounding group, and taking the leader directly in the face, blowing it off his shoulders. The three remaining under-dwellers were shocked to see their leader taken down so efficiently and Han took the opportunity to dispatch another one. Trince was right behind the attack slicing up a third enemy. Lando was the last one to catch up to the action, taking out the last member of the attacking squad.

Han didn't bother evaluating their kills, but walked over to Trince to see how serious the wound was. Lando had become respectable over the years since his gambling and smuggling days, and though the violent times of his past were still remembered, he shuddered as he stepped over the bodies. Trince had removed the knife from his side and was concentrating on stopping the blood loss. Han scrambled in his pack for some disinfectant while he told Lando to keep an eye out for reinforcements.

The Jedi winced as Han applied the medication but the process didn't last long and Han had it bandaged quickly. "You guys are fast healers, right?" Han asked, referring to Trince's Force skills.

Trince nodded his response as he labored to stand. He hopped up and down a few times testing his legs for a pulling sensation on his side and found that he could walk with moderate pain. "I'll be okay," he said finally.

"How are we supposed to know what level we are on?" Lando asked as they begun walking, alert for another attack.

"Haven't a clue," Han replied. "I left a transmitter in the palace, and I thought that once we got this far down we could follow its signal back to the palace. Granted we will be a kilometer or two below the transmitter, but once inside the bowels of the palace I thought it would be easier to find the second level."

"Well, we better hurry," Trince put in, picking up the pace slightly.

"Why is that?" Lando asked.

"Because whoever we killed back there has friends and they are coming after us."

"I'm sure they will be," Lando said, "that is why we are-"

Han raised his hand to silence his friend. He strained to hear in the distance and could make out very faint running noises. In the underworld, silence was a necessity to survive, so noise could only mean one thing. "They're coming now," Han said, realizing that Trince must have detected their approach through the Force.

The three began to run. Han tried to make sure they ran in the general direction of the palace, but as long as they evaded their pursuers, any direction was acceptable. They occasionally found the opportunity to move down a level and gladly took it. Soon they could hear animal sounds behind them and were beginning to realize that in this putrid environment, any tracking animal would be able to pick up their unique scent with ease.

Ten minutes into the chase, they hit a very slick patch of mold and Trince went down hard. Han stopped quickly, almost taking a spill himself and helped the Jedi up, but Trince wasn't moving fast enough. "Come on! They're coming!"

"Something's . . .wrong," he gasped. He had been running on adrenaline and the Force, but the sudden fall had broke his concentration. Now, since his pulse had increased, the vile liquid from the knife wound had had a chance to circulate through his entire body and Trince was struck with near paralysis.

Lando pulled up short a couple meters ahead, turning back to see what was keeping his companions. "What's wrong?"

As if to answer his question, the noises that had been following them ceased and there was a deathly silence around the trio. Han was concerned about the Jedi, but had to ignore him for a moment while he pulled his blaster and surveyed their surroundings. It was very dark, but Han's eyes had adjusted to the low light and could see that they were in what had once been an old industrial factory with large pieces of machinery all over the place. Han couldn't hear, but could sense the motion around him. He felt eyes looking in on him from all over. Then he saw the eyes. Pairs of red eyes began appearing all around the three men. Han was still crouched over the fallen Jedi with Lando standing over the pair.

The eyes came out of the shadows and revealed the rest of their bodies to the doomed individuals. From their mouths, Han could definitely see that they were canine in nature, but that was the only defining mark on them. Each creature had six legs and fur instead of normal dog hair. The fur itself was matted and bare in places, giving each animal a sick, rabid look about them. Unlike most unruly animals, these beasts did not drool. They kept their jaws together, letting the victims imagine for themselves what kind of teeth lay behind the snarled lips.

The animals didn't need teeth to make their facial visage menacing; the infrared eyes were enough. Han felt that not only were the dog beasts seeing his body heat, they were stealing it. Han also knew the futility of trying to shoot his way out of this. There were at least twelve of these animals surrounding them, all of which were only a couple leaps away from pouncing on them. Even if Han and Lando could take out four of the things quickly, that would leave eight of the animals to finish off the trio. As it was now, the animals seemed content to wait for their masters to catch up. That didn't take long.

Figures, much like the ones Han and company had killed earlier, emerged from the darkness behind the dogs. This time each of the hunched men carried some type of projectile weapon with them, whether it be a blaster, slug thrower, or crossbow, each man was better prepared to face the three dangerous men.

The men came forward and disarmed two very dejected captives. One of the under-dwellers flipped Trince over onto his back to check his condition and found that he was passed out and hot with fever. He also had a blaster on him, which was removed. The hunchback noticed the muck-covered lightsaber and, deciding that it might be of some unknown value, took it as well.

The captures spoke quickly and in an obscure language, making several gestures toward the fallen Jedi. Han noticed that the dogs regarded Trince with apprehension. His high body fever must make him look like some sort of heat demon through the beast's infravision. Finally, the under-dwellers decided to simply leave the Jedi to die and took Han and Lando as prisoners.

The two long time friends were bound tightly and were prodded many times with knives to cooperate. Before they left the old factory building, Han glanced back at the fallen, sick Jedi wondering if he would get to die from fever before some scavenger beast ate him. If Han had known what was going to happen, he would have shot Trince in the head, before his blaster had been taken away from him. Now he would die in agony. Wondering about agony, Han dared to think if either he or Lando had a chance of ever seeing the sunlight again.

***

Snotzenexer stood in front of the military committee wondering how to begin. Everything had gone so smoothly for him so far that he felt the timetables he had set out in advance would be met with little trouble and he no longer had to put forth any effort. He had expected to have to campaign a little more than he did for the position of president. The unsuspecting senators had simply given him the position on a silver platter.

Now, as he stood in front of the military committee of which he was not a member, he thought that all he would have to do was to tell them he was going to bring a former Imperial admiral and almost thirty of her ships into the Republic to augment the depleted navy, and they would say yes. The way things were going they would agree it was a splendid idea without out one negative vote. Instead, he decided to deliver his pitch as he had planed it all those weeks before.

"As you know, I have made the point several times that one of my ideas for saving the Republic's money is to reduce the size of the military. I know that all of you are worried that after your last battle with the Empire your navy is too small as it is. I assure you that I have ways to remedy that situation as well as continuing with my plan to lessen the money put into the military."

"That is an apparent oxymoron, president," one of the senators said. "I hope you can adequately explain yourself."

"First, I would like you to know that I have connections with former Imperial members and they have all but given up the fight to restore their lost power. After your battle in the Danzig system, the last big Imperial outpost was destroyed, and the remaining scattering of the Empire can be counted on the fingers of one hand. I am not saying that you should dismantle all of your war ships and throw a victory celebration, but I do think that you no longer need to stay at war readiness."

"I do have a few problems with this, president," one of the senators spoke up. "One of the major selling points of our government is that we promise to protect our members from all threats. Now, while what you say about the Empire being extinct might be true, and we all hope it is, that doesn't relieve us from protecting our members. They need to see our military strength as a sign of security and confidence."

"I agree and to answer that concern I will attempt to address what I said earlier about increasing the size of our fleet. I am surprised that none of you asked about my Imperial contacts. Well, it just so happens that in my home system of Varion, there is an Imperial fleet in hiding. They have been there for a long time with moral running extremely low. They were just about to make their presence known to you, when the whole incident with the Empire in the Danzig system cropped up. The admiral of the fleet has spoken to me on several occasions expressing her wishes to defect to the Republic, but not knowing how to do it."

Snotzenexer looked about the room as the senators were giving him mixed responses. "How can we be sure that this is not another Imperial trick?"

Snotzenexer tried to look hurt. This is where he needed to play on their awe of his intellect. "I assure you that I would not have brought this matter before you if I had thought it to be an Imperial trick. I have researched this fleet as much as I have researched anything else I have down, and I am telling you that they wish for nothing more than to end their exile and rejoin a functioning government. They are willing to agree totally to unconditional defection where in you will gain control of their ships which will greatly increase your fleet strength, and they will be allowed to live in the Republic as members."

"That sounds like an incredible offer, but how will we be able to man these ships in our depleted sate?"

"I suggest that as part of the agreement, you require that some of them stay on to run the ships until you can recruit enough replacements. As for the Admiral, I suggest that you let her retain some of her rank, for she is an excellent tactician and would be able to provide you with volumes of information about Imperial tactics."

Snotzenexer surveyed his audience again, noting that most of the faces were now grinning in a positive way. The fact that Sanson was female played perfectly into this lie. It was well known that females were not respected in the old Empire and it made sense that a female admiral would hide rather than try to contact her fellow Imperials for fear of loosing her command. The members of the committee asked Snotzenexer if they could be given time to talk it over. The former admiral nodded in understanding, knowing inside that there was no way they would turn down this offer of free ships.

Snotzenexer's plan was coming together nicely. There was only one more piece of the puzzle that needed to be put into place for his take over to be complete, and Skywalker should arrive on Coruscant sometime tomorrow.

****

Chapter 21 "Rematch"

Jacen and Jaina walked slowly through the crowded streets of Mos Eisley, trying not to pay too much attention to the scenery around them of which they had heard so many stories, but instead kept an eye out for Eran. They had followed him to Tatooine, found his ship and had disabled it. They both realized that the reason for this planet stop was that with all of the space traffic that went in and out of here, it would be very easy for Eran to find another way off of this planet.

The twins had never been to their uncle's home planet, and they weren't sad that they had missed out. Tatooine was one big sand trap. The suns were far too hot and the wind much to brisk for the amount of sand it had to toss around.

"Which way?" Jacen asked eagerly.

Jaina had been able to locate Eran's presence in space a few times in their chase when the elusive Imperial had changed course and found that he must have some sort of Force strength that aloud the young Jedi to track him. "Over there," she pointed at a crowded drinking establishment.

Jacen and his sister made their way into the saloon, Jacen keeping his tall head above most of the patronage, trying to pick out his enemy. Eran was sitting in a side booth having a very heated discussion with an interesting alien across the table. The instant that Jacen made a positive identity check, Eran swiveled his head around, engaging the Jedi in an intense stare across the crowded room.

Eran looked back quickly at the alien, who had managed to draw a blaster with Eran's attention distracted. Eran paid him no mind and chopped his open hand down on the creature's neck before the stunned alien could pull his trigger. The unfortunate pilot slumped his head to the table and Eran relived him of his ship license.

As the Imperial agent hurried out of the bar through the back exit, he glanced at the license and the parking voucher attached to it. This ship was on the opposite side of Mos Eisley and much too far to get to while staying ahead of the sibling team that was following him. Instead he saw a row of swoops belonging to a local gang that was inside an adjacent bar.

There was one member of the gang who had drawn the coveted job of watching the beloved vehicles, making sure that no one tried to steal the powerful machines. Eran pretended to ignore him and proceeded to board the nearest swoop. The guard didn't even bother to give a warning, but fired at point blank range. As soon as Eran had hopped on the bike, he had rolled off it, drawing his lightsaber, and leaping over the next row of bikes to confront the guard. The surprise at Eran's unique choice of weapons made the guard hesitate before he fired again, which he never actually got to do because Eran had already lopped off the end of his blaster. Instead of firing the weapon, when the startled gang member pulled the trigger of the destroyed blaster, it blew up in his hand. Eran dispatched the guard in the same manner in which he had taken out the alien in the bar and returned to the swoops.

Eran always carried around a universal actuator that his former employers had forgotten to relieve him of. He clipped the actuator onto the starter cable of the nearest bike and activated it. The bike roared to life and Eran sped away just as Jacen and Jaina emerged from one bar and the swoop gang emerged from the other.

The Jedi ignored the cries of the gang as they hopped onto one of the remaining swoops. Jaina placed her hand on the console of the bike, concentrated for a second, and the machine started with a thunderous ignition. Jacen, meanwhile, found himself fending off a few poorly aimed blaster shots while his sister accelerated away from the gang.

The bikes had been parked on the edge of town, and Eran now headed out away from town and toward a rocky out-cropping a few kilometers into the dessert. The out-cropping was pretty large, and Jacen could tell that Eran's plan was probably to loose them in the rocks and then double back to town where he could try and locate the ship of the unconscious alien. Jacen thought it a poor plan because with their swoop weighted down with two people, Eran's best chance of escape was to try and out distance the Jedi. Instead, Eran appeared to want to try and out maneuver them, and Jaina had to be four times the driver that Eran was. The Imperial would only loose ground if he entered the rocks.

Eran was thinking something else entirely. He was sick of running. This gundark and mouse game had been going on long enough, and he wanted it over. Eran was willing to face whatever trumped up charges that Jacen planned on bringing against him. But first, he was going to make the Jedi beat him in combat. It was a duel that both men wanted. Neither one of them had been satisfied with either of their earlier performances and wanted a final battle to determine just who deserved the title of best fighter. It really wasn't about the title though. Eran wanted to get rid of his pursuers, and Jacen wanted to finally catch Eran. For either to achieve his goal, he needed to beat the other. Eran was just glad that he could pick the field of battle. He was only a couple seconds away from the rocks now, and he slowed a little to make a turn in between two cliffs.

Jaina saw Eran's deceleration and decided to gain some ground by merely making the turn wider. She swung the swoop out wide and cut it in sharply where Eran had turned moments before. They entered the small gap between rocks and in a flash of light their swoop was spinning out of control. Both Jedi leaped safely from their perch, landing on the rocky dessert sand. Jacen rolled quickly to his feet and cast a questioning look back at the entry to the rocky island. Eran stood calmly with his stolen lightsaber drawn and the front of the twin's decapitated swoop lying at his feet.

"Let's end this," was all Eran needed to say and Jacen was running toward him with his lightsaber drawn.

The initial encounter was fast and furious with neither opponent giving ground nor letting up at all. Jaina watched from a safe distance, wondering how this would turn out. She heard the roar of engines coming from the entrance to the outcropping and saw that the rest of the swoop gang had shown up. The members took one look at the two fighters and decided to hold off on any retribution until the fight was over.

If either Jacen or Eran noticed the arrival of the swoop gang, neither showed it. The fighters had ceased their fury and were now fighting at saber length apart, using their long blades and quick feet to their advantage. Jacen was the bigger and taller fighter, but Eran was more nimble.

The floor of the fighting arena was mostly sand, but as they neared the rock faces, the sand became lumpy until it evolved into an uneven staircase up the side of the outcropping. Eran skirted the fringes of this rocky stairway as he tried to fend off his taller opponent. Jacen attacked Eran's elevated foundation a few times only to have his quicker opponent leap to a new position.

Soon both of the fighters were on the rock piles, finding that they not only had to worry about where their opponent's attacks were going to land, but also where their own feet were going to land. Each step on the loose rock was an adventure, and any slip was an opening for the other.

Jacen was the first to falter as his boot settled on a deceivingly solid rock that rolled from underneath his weight. The Jedi had to put his hand backward to brace his fall and needed a quick look to locate a firm placement for his appendage. Eran pressed the advantage by stepping in above the bent backward Jedi and attacking from on high. The blow was aimed at Jacen's head, and was very easy to block in his precarious position, but it was simply an attack to bring the Jedi's weapon up away from his legs where Eran's second attack went. It was a good move on the Imperial's part. Under normal circumstances, the defender would have to fall flat to the rocks and roll away to dodge the blow, giving Eran an even bigger advantage. But Eran forgot that he was fighting a Jedi who was capable of acrobatic acts of incredible strength. Jacen flipped backwards on his anchored left hand, bringing his feet up and over his head, landing them on higher, more secure ground.

Eran took only a brief second to gape at the move before he charged up the slope, hoping to catch the Jedi off balanced after his flip. Instead, Jacen had secured higher ground and pressed Eran back with a series of vicious blows that would have crumpled a lesser opponent. Eran quickly circled to Jacen's side, so the fighters were once again on even ground - as even as the rocky foundation could provide.

Eran was getting desperate to end this fight, seeing that the longer it lasted, the calmer his Force strong opponent felt. He faked a slip on the rocks and fell backwards just as Jacen had done earlier. Instead of actually falling, Eran had found a loose rock and pretended to roll on it. In the act of falling the nimble fighter managed to roll the small rock onto the toe of his boot.

As Jacen charged in, Eran lifted his lightsaber to draw the Jedi's weapon up and away from his body and kicked up with foot. Eran's kick launched the rock right into the Jedi's charging chin, and Jacen was stunned for a moment. Eran quickly gathered his feet beneath him and lashed out with his boot at his dazed opponent. The kick sent Jacen falling from their elevated position, tumbling upon the uneven rocks below. The Jedi had enough sense to slice into the rock slope with his weapon as he fell, so when Eran tried to follow the falling Jedi, he stepped on the weakened slope and copied Jacen's tumbling act.

Both fighters endured nasty bruises during the fall, but came up quickly, wary of each other and any more tricks. They swung a few half-hearted swings at each other that were violently batted away. Soon the half-hearted swings became more frequent, and they were once again joined fully into battle.

This time Jacen decided to make the first daring offensive move. He circled around until Eran had his back to the slope they had both tumbled down moments before. He gave a few hard swings, and the Jedi had his adversary right were he wanted him. With a small prodding with the Force, a few rocks came rolling down the slope. Eran heard the noise but didn't dare look down to see how the falling rocks would affect his footing as he was fully engaged with Jacen. Instead he merely risked the chance the he might step on a rolling rock as he tried to flank his opponent out of their position.

Jacen swung in hard from his right as Eran tried to go to his left, and the Jedi brought few more rocks rolling down the slope. This time Eran had to hop back to his right to absorb the blow and landed on one of the moving rocks. His feet slipped out from under him and his back fell on the forty-degree slope behind him.

The next scene happened in slow motion, at least it did to Jaina who would see it in her dreams for weeks to come. Both fighters attacked without regard to what their opponent was doing. Jacen saw Eran fall backwards with his lightsaber thrown wide to his right from blocking Jacen's attack. The Jedi brought his weapon up high and swung down hard, hoping to make Eran roll to his left or right, giving Jacen a better opportunity to disarm him. Eran saw that Jacen was going to come in hard and swung his lightsaber out and away from him from right to left to force the Jedi backwards.

Eran's blade struck home first. The Imperial couldn't even really see what he was doing, as his eyes were squinting against the sun's glare, but when his blade met resistance he muscled his swing through, thinking to be pushing Jacen's blade aside. He rolled opposite his swing when he was finished and came up to face his opponent. Jacen was gone. All that remained was his deactivated lightsaber and a pile of his clothes.

Eran had no clue as to what had happened and searched frantically around for his opponent, fearing another Jedi trick, but Jacen was truly gone. It wasn't until he made eye contact with a very shocked Jaina that he realized what had happened. Jaina's mouth was wide open and her knees gave way, sending her into the sand where she knelt, frozen in grief. She had watched Eran's blade pass through her brother's torso, and then he had just disappeared into thin air.

The swoop gang decided as a group that they would begrudge the loss of two of their bikes rather than face the likes of Eran and left the two remaining thieves alone.

***

Five minutes after landing on Coruscant, Luke was standing in his sister's quarters only to find that they were empty. Not just empty of people, but all the furniture was gone too. "Excuse me," Luke grabbed one of the passing palace staff, "what happened to the presidential suite?"

The cleaning lady looked at Luke oddly. "We cleaned it out for the new president."

New president?! Luke thought. "Where is Leia?"

"I think she has temporary residence in the senatorial quarters."

"Thanks," Luke said and raced down toward the senatorial wing. Luke had no idea what room his sister was in, but a moment of concentration revealed her presence in the Force a few floors up and down the hall. Luke added a quick step to his walk because of what he had just felt in his sister's thoughts. Things were definitely not as they should be and Leia's mental condition was not a stable one.

A few minutes later Luke entered Leia's quarters and found the two droids, Chewie, and Leia sitting in a nervous silence. One look at Chewie's snarl told Luke that nerves were on edge in this room. "What's wrong Leia?"

Leia was slow to answer, and her red eyes told the Jedi Master that she had been crying for a long time. "Something's happened to Jacen. I . . . I felt him shudder and then disappear."

"Disappear?"

"I can't really explain it. I don't always feel their presence, but now it is like I was shown his presence long enough to see that it was removed and now I can't get it anymore."

Luke hadn't felt anything, but then he didn't have one tenth of the connection with the twins that Leia had. "What about Jaina?"

"She felt the same thing I did, I think, because when the ripple went through me, I felt that she had the same feeling and went into shock."

"How long ago was this?"

"A couple hours," Leia said, "but that's not all. Han is gone and they are kicking me out tonight."

"Kicking you out?" Luke asked incredulously.

"With the new president and fifty new senators and their staff coming tomorrow, they are short of space and since I no longer have a position in the senate, they can't afford to keep me here anymore."

"Can't afford it? Are you kidding? The Republic is loaded. Surely they could put you up in a hotel for a while. But where is Han?"

Leia looked at her brother in the face with a half-hearted attempt at a smile. "A lot has changed since you left. The Republic doesn't have a lot of money. Han and Lando went down to the lower levels of Coruscant to try and access some old files in the Emperor's financial holdings. But that was before the new president fixed the financial problems."

"Who is this new president?"

"It's some important bank president from the Varion system."

Luke nearly fell over. "Admiral Snotzenexer?!"

"He's not an admiral Luke," Leia said.

"How long has he been president?"

"Three or four days, I can't really remember, why?"

"Good, there is still time."

"Time for what, Luke? What's going on?"

Luke put a reassuring hand on his sister's shoulder. "You have everything packed in the Falcon, right?" Leia nodded a response. "Okay, just go to Yavin IV. It's only a day's trip away. I have some stuff I need to take care of. I'll try to get Han too. Don't worry, things will be okay, you'll see." He gave Leia a quick kiss on the cheek and left the room.

***

Ten minutes later found Luke nearly sprinting through the area above the assembly chamber toward the presidential office. He needed another meeting with Snotzenexer. The admiral would tell Luke what he wanted to know one way or another. The Jedi Master wouldn't accept any of Snotzenexer's stupid half-truths this time.

Luke slowed his pace as he neared the office doors and noticed that there were two guards stationed at the door. "I need to see the president." Luke said, not wasting time with words, but using his perfected Jedi mind trick on the pair.

"You need to see the president."

"The president is busy."

Luke was startled at the split decision almost as much as the guards were. No one should have been able to withstand his mental suggestion with out a lot of concentration or preparation. The answer to Luke's wonderment was given to him when he saw the reaction of the guards. Realization dawned on both of their faces as to what had just happened, and Luke knew that they had been warned of his coming.

"The president is busy, Skywalker. You need to make an appointment."

Luke didn't have time for this. If Snotzenexer had only been in power for three days, then he wouldn't have had enough time to employ any of his underhanded tactics yet. Luke reached out toward the two guards with the Force and watched, as the guard on the left became weak at the knees as his neurological pathways began to shut down. The other guard struck this weaker one who had also been the one to succumb to Luke's mind trick.

Both of the guards drew their blasters and Luke took advantage of the lesser willed one by yanking the weapon out of his grasp with the Force. The other guard fired at Luke, hitting him solidly in the chest, but the ringed stun bolt had little effect on the Jedi Master. Luke took out the man he had disarmed and turned his blaster on the other guard. Luke watched in horror as the man had just thumbed his weapon to maximum power and fired.

Luke wasn't in a position to block the blast, but rolled to the side as the now deadly bolt whisked over his head. Luke had dropped his blaster on the floor during the roll and came up on one knee with Mara's lightsaber in his hand. He deflected the next two bolts into the floor and played with the blaster he had left on the floor.

Unseen to the guard, who was focused on Luke, the blaster angled up slightly and seemed to fire itself, striking the guard in the chest and sending him into blackness. Luke began to relax, when his instincts told him to roll. He did so, just as a blaster bolt scorched the air he had just occupied.

Luke contemplated slashing the office door in front of him open, but could sense that there were probably guards waiting for him on the other side of the door. This is what Snotzenexer had decided. He needed to kill me, Luke thought, but if he had done so in the Varion system, word would have gone out that I had died while inspecting Imperial activity and his cover would have been blown. Now he can claim that I died while fighting the palace guards in an attempt to force my way to see the president.

Luke was angry that he hadn't seen the trap Mara had tried to point out to him. Two guards were running down both ends of the hall toward him, while he was pressed into the cubby that held the door to the presidential office. Luke leaped out into the middle of the hall, splitting the distance between the two pairs of guards who were still ten meters from the office and twenty from each other. The startled guards each fired, and Luke dropped to the floor.

The short sighted guards each realized Luke's trick the moment after they fired and dove for cover from their own bolts. One of the guards took a shot in the arm while the others avoided contact. Luke leaped the ten meters between him and the injured guard, using the distraction the dodging men had given him. Luke landed next to one of the remaining three guards, while the fourth lay in agony at his feet. The Jedi smacked the standing guard with the handle of his lightsaber, sending him to the floor. With both guards next to him on the floor, the guards down the hall began firing again.

Luke sprinted down the corridor as bolts flew past him into the wall and ceiling. Turning a corner, Luke found himself running head on into a group of three men, each with a blaster. He didn't have time to think. It came down to kill or be killed, and he didn't want Snotzenexer to win. Luke slashed out with his weapon at the guard on the left, tearing his weapon from his hand, and taking a good portion of the hand with it. He turned his body as he swung, making the other two men miss. As they turned to bear, Luke lashed out with his foot at the near one and spun back again, avoiding the third man's shot.

Luke had kicked the gun out of the grasp of the second guard, but now faced the third at point blank range. Luke threw his lightsaber at the man, slashing him through the chest as his bolt slammed into the wall next to Luke. In the heat of battle, Luke didn't give the death a second's thought, but called his weapon back to him and continued around the corner as the men behind him caught up.

Around the corner, five more men were waiting at a distance of twenty meters, each with a gun leveled at Luke. Luke stopped cold. He could get past these men, but how many would he have to kill to do so? He had just killed a palace guard. A Republic Palace Guard! That had been Snotzenexer's plan! Luke was now guilty of treason and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. Luke sighed as he accepted his fate, wishing he had more thoroughly thought out Snotzenexer's plan.

All five men in front of him fired, but the shots were ringed stun bolts. Luke didn't have time to comprehend the sudden shift in intentions, but took four of the five shots in the body and crumpled into a heap.

***

Snotzenexer exited his office and looked at the two stunned men leaning against opposite walls of the recess in front of his door and sighed. It was all two easy. He leaned over the first body and pulled a hidden blaster from inside his coat. "I'm sorry," he said to the unconscious man and shot him in the chest.

***

Luke looked at the senate chamber with a sickening feeling in his stomach. The resemblance to the courtroom that had been on Hastrin was almost sickening. Here he was, on trial again, and to be prosecuted by the same person. This time it was different. This wasn't an Imperial kangaroo court, but his own government was bringing charges against him. Charges of which he too thought he was guilty. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Snotzenexer had set up the whole thing and also knew that Snotzenexer was an Imperial from head to toe, but Luke didn't see anything he could do about it. He had no proof that wouldn't sound like grasping at straws, and now with his situation being what it was, all of his credibility had been stolen. It would have been next to impossible for him to convince the entire senate and populace of the known galaxy that Snotzenexer was a fraud without having committed treason, but now it was beyond impossible.

Leia had left already, and Luke was glad. He didn't want her to have to see this.

Snotzenexer pounded a gavel to gain silence. The senate chamber was just as full as it had been a few days ago for Snotzenexer's inauguration. It would have been more crowded, but you can only fit so many people into one building before you created a spacial anomaly.

The sound barriers were put in place from the start and the atmosphere behind the electronic restraints in the balconies was quite unique. It was amazing how quickly hidden feelings came to the surface when it was no longer taboo to hold such feelings. There had been a lot of people who had secretly disliked Luke and the Jedi Academy he had started. The misunderstood were often feared and most people saw Luke and his Jedi as spoon benders who were just after power. They had god-like powers to most people, and the old adage "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" had held true with the Emperor and Darth Vader, why should these new Force users be any different.

Snotzenexer looked at the hostile crowd in the balconies and smiled. The ironic thing was that right now Snotzenexer held more power than either the Emperor or Vader ever had. Not only was his empire bigger than the old Empire had been, but he also held the entire financial galaxy in his grasp, and unlike the Emperor, people enjoyed having him in power. But even though he had this power, no one had even begun to fear him like they did Luke. It was very simple. The people had given the power to Snotzenexer by respecting his financial prowess and legislative skill. He hadn't forced anyone to mimic his every stock trade, but they had anyway. He hadn't seized the presidency by force, but had had it handed to him.

The senators in the crowd were a mixed bunch. The newer members who had been reluctant to join in the past because of their dislike for the haphazard way in which the New Republic had been run, saw this as the end of that New Republic and the true beginning of the present Republic. The Imperial members showed professional restraint, but would secretly like to be up in the balconies with the rest of the rowdies. It wasn't that they still held traitorous ideologies like Snotzenexer was harboring, but they saw this as the final end of the Rebellion, something which every Imperial, whether reformed or not, had to take a little pride in. The remaining senators were the ones who had been loyal to Leia and her brother. They were basically hanging their heads in shame for Luke's sake. They couldn't deny the charges brought against their former hero, and could only hope that the rest of the senate would be gracious as to the sentence they passed.

"This special assembly is here to pass judgment against Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, and former hero of the New Republic. The charges that have been brought against him include high treason and murder. The evidence for these charges is self evident in the following video." With that, Snotzenexer proceeded to play the security camera recording of the incident the previous day.

The large screen behind Snotzenexer came to life and revealed Luke walking up to the two guards and the scuffle that ensued. Luke stole the weapon from the guard on the left and fired. The audience, and especially Luke, gasped when the bolt that came out of his stolen weapon was not a stun bolt like Luke had actually fired. The guard slumped against the wall with an ugly blaster burn in the middle of his chest that shouldn't have been there from a stun blast.

The remaining guard had already struck Luke in the chest with a stun bolt. The security camera showed the man adjust the power setting on his weapon, but you couldn't exactly see to what level. Luke was not at all surprised to see that the second bolt the guard's gun produced was still not lethal but instead was a maximum stun.

The crowd "oooh"ed and "aaaaah"ed at Luke's technique in evading the stun bolts, but grimaced when Luke used the blaster on the floor to kill the other guard. Luke realized that it didn't take much to doctor the security tape to make the stun bolts look like killing ones and vice versa. The bolts only appeared for a fraction of a second as they exited the blasters and then only briefly again as they exploded in the chest of the victim.

Luke watched the rest of the video with resigned acceptance. All of the bolts fired at him were shown to be stuns instead of killings like they had been. The idea was simple: the guards had used non-lethal force while Luke had not. Even after Luke had supposedly killed the first two guards, they still used stun bolts.

The crowd became hostile again at the gore of Luke's first real kill, and now even some of the older senators were showing some vocal disdain for the Jedi Master. Perhaps they had been wrong to support the members of the Rebellion. Their confidence in Leia had been shattered a week previous, and now Luke's credibility was fading like the heat on Forinad.

At the end of the video the cameras showed Snotzenexer leaning over each of the guards outside his office, apparently grieving for the lost. In actuality, Luke realized, Snotzenexer was placing the vicious blaster burns on the two guards. Marks that had been used earlier in the video to make it look like Skywalker had killed them.

When the video was over, Snotzenexer turned to look at Luke, any smugness that he might have wanted to show in this situation was absent from his face, but Luke could read his thoughts through his eyes. Luke had won the first encounter by escaping from Hastrin, but Snotzenexer wanted the Jedi to know that this was the battle that mattered because there wouldn't be a third one. "Luke Skywalker, how do you plead to the charges brought against you?"

Luke took a long pause before answering, causing many in the audience to nearly burst with suspense. He played around with a variety of answers, but only one answer would allow him to retain the little dignity he had left. "I would like to enter the plea of guilty as charged."

The crowd was silent. They had been preparing to boo a "not guilty" plea, not believing that the Jedi Master would give up without a fight. "I think that I speak for everyone present when I say that I am very surprised by your actions. I think that all of us who looked to you for leadership in the past, would like to know why you did what you did."

Luke looked hard at Snotzenexer, tempted by the Dark side more than he had ever been before. It would be easy to kill him right now. It would only take a moment's thought. Snotzenexer wasn't going to make it easy for Luke to bow out with anything that even closely resembled dignity. Of course he couldn't say why he had done what he had done. He would sound like a mad man, flinging mud at anyone he could to take them down with him. "I offer no explanation for my actions and pray for your forgiveness."

Snotzenexer was a little surprised by this plea for mercy. He had planned on showing the Jedi mercy anyway, that is, if the senate allowed him. In reality, he wanted the Jedi dead. He was still mad they hadn't been able to kill him on Hastrin. There were few times when you could kill someone as powerful as Luke Skywalker without drawing unwanted attention to yourself. Hastrin had been one of those times; now was another. The problem with now is that he still had a few people who were loyal to Leia in the senate and although he had given these people no reason to hate him yet, he had also given them no reason to like him either.

"The normal penalty for treason is death," this brought the audience in the balconies back to life, "but I would like to caution the senate as to such a sentence. Luke Skywalker, though he as committed grievous crimes, has done more for the stability and unity of this Republic than anyone else alive. At the same time, regardless of what he has done in the past, these crimes can not go unpunished. I suggest exile above the death sentence."

These comments sent a buzz through the senate chamber. There had been two sides of the senate, one who wanted to sentence Luke to death and another that wanted to see him live. The side that wanted him dead was scared that there wouldn't be enough senators agreeing with them and they wouldn't get a clear majority. The same held true for the other side. This compromise appealed to both sides. It was a way to remove Luke from the Republic without killing him.

The next twenty minutes saw a short debate take place at the end of which, Luke was exiled to Hoth. Snotzenexer ended the proceedings with a pound of his gavel and a smile toward Luke. Everything had gone according to plan. He had control of the political arena, the financial arena, and, as soon as his wife came with her ships, the military arena. He also had removed the only person that could have upset the turn of events, and he had done so with the help of the senate. The rebirth of the Empire was only days away.

***

Mara was sitting stunned in her ship. She had just finished watching the court proceedings on her holo-viewer and still couldn't believe what had transpired. Sure, she had warned Luke about a trap Snotzenexer was probably setting for him, but even she hadn't expected it to be as thorough a trap as it had been.

Mara's ship was flying in hyperspace toward her next pick-up point in keeping with her rigorous trading schedule. She got up from her comfortable couch and made her way toward the cockpit when something dawned on her. Now that Luke was exiled and Leia was banished from the political scene, she was the only one who knew what Snotzenexer's true motives were. Despite all of her talk about independence, she wouldn't be caught dead trying to work under an Imperial government. Besides, if Admiral Sanson was going to have a part in the up-coming takeover, Mara had a personal score to settle. The master trader dropped out of hyperspace, sent a message to her previous destination about how she wouldn't be able to make it, and set a new course for Coruscant.

To be continued . . .

The End

   [1]: mailto:dpontier@hotmail.com
   [2]: http://www.geocities.com/piqsid/stories.html



	2. Quiet Before the Storm

Quiet Before the Storm

by David Pontier

[dpontier@hotmail.com][1]

[Homepage][2]

Chapter 1 "Developments"

"What?!"

"I said that we need people like you. The Republic is growing very fast and-"

"You are offering me a job?!" Mara Jade was looking at Snotzenexer as if he had grown another head. "After all I've been through and with all that I know, you think I'm just going to forget it and join up with you?"

"I thought you would want to go in the direction of the least resistance," Snotzenexer lied. He had no delusions on how Mara felt about this situation. Still, he had to make the offer to keep the whole act going. The act would never convince the spirited trader that he was on the level, but it might quell her fears that he was trying to return the Republic to a Palpatine-style government.

"Face it Mara, the time of the Solos and Skywalkers is over. They have been replaced. Regardless of how you think I achieved this position, it is mine, and it will not be taken away from me any time soon. I plan only to make this government run more smoothly than it is now. To do that I need to set up a new trading system. The one your former employer set up is out of date, and no one has seen Karde in a long time. What I need is someone who knows how everything is done on a large scale and is capable of giving orders to get things done."

"You are way off base," Mara responded, barely keeping her voice under control. She looked around the presidential office that Snotzenexer had been occupying for a little less than a week. She hadn't been in the office when Leia had ruled, but she was sure the current arrangement was unrecognizable from the previous one. All remnants of the old government had indeed been removed.

Mara stared at Snotzenexer, hoping the genius would make another claim of how he intended to promote peace and stability so she could yell at him again, but the president was quite content to let Mara continue the conversation on her own. "Not only will I not take your job, but I'll make sure everyone else in my trade knows what you're about so you won't be able to hire anyone." The threat sounded a little weak and Mara wished she hadn't said it.

"You, I would care to wager, are the only one in your trade that cares one iota about morals or 'right and wrong.' Everyone else is only concerned about the almighty credit. It won't take too much convincing to show them that since I have - excuse me - since the Republic has control of nearly one twentieth of the galaxy's commerce and in order to make money, you need to be associated with us."

Mara just stood there, hateful thoughts flowing through her mind. She wondered if Snotzenexer knew how easaly the Emperor's Hand could kill him right now. The president wouldn't be able so much as to begin to call for help, much less put up any defense.

"What about Luke?" she asked, calling the Jedi Master by his first name for the first time in resent memory.

"What about him? He's on Hoth. Everyone knows the planet has been quarantined and no one is allowed near the system. If you're implying that you think you can just stroll in and rescue him, go ahead and try, I think we both remember how well your last 'Skywalker Rescue' attempt went. Besides, if that is what you are insinuating, then I will have to put you in custody for plotting against the Republic."

Mara was blocked at every avenue. She had come up to this office to get Snotzenexer to confess to her. She hadn't really had a game plan, so when Snotzenexer had started the meeting with, "Miss Jade, just the person I wanted to see," Mara had been taken back a bit. Now she saw nothing else to be done, and made a hasty exit toward the door.

"Please at least consider my offer," Snotzenexer threw towards her retreating back. "The financial rewards would be considerable."

Mara mumbled a curse in response that was far too vulgar to allow being audible.

***

Jill Sanson came out of the side room after Mara had left her husband's office. "A credit for your thoughts, Alex," she asked curiously.

"Get in line, dear," Snotzenexer responded, still looking at the door through which Mara had departed. "You are at the end of the line too, for there are some who will give much more than a credit to know what I'm thinking."

"Oh," Sanson inquired, as she walked toward his chair. Something in her voice made Snotzenexer turn to face her. It was evening and Sanson was obviously ready for bed. "Perhaps I could give you something more valuable."

"Like what?" Snotzenexer asked, his voice betraying his eyes.

"Oh, I don't know," she said sitting on his desk on front of him, "something like this," she finished, kissing him lightly on the lips.

"But these people are willing to pay a lot of money."

She kissed him again. "How much am I worth to you?"

"Oh," Snotzenexer started, getting interrupted by another kiss, "about two hundred," another kiss, "billion," kiss, "fortunes."

Sanson seemed satisfied with this answer and walked slowly away from her husband. Snotzenexer was still a little bit out of breath as he watched his wife walk toward the adjacent bedroom. "You didn't want to know what I was thinking, did you?"

Without turning her head, Sanson shook it. Snotzenexer got up from his chair and made his way quickly after his wife. Maybe they'd talk about tactics in the morning.

***

"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

Trince Alinter, Jedi Knight, lay in a pool of his own sweat. His heart pounded methodically in his chest, pumping his poisoned blood to every location in his body. His brain throbbed as it tried to resist the vile chemicals that had bled into his system through a vicious knife wound, but it could find no other source of oxygen for survival, forcing it to take the good blood with the bad. The Jedi's mind did somersaults as it hallucinated through five simultaneous nightmares, each more horrid than the one before.

Trince's muscles throbbed under the punishment they were taking. The cruel potion broke down the cells even as they tried to absorb the oxygen in the blood. The result was constant cramping the likes of which no man living has ever experienced. The only movement of which the young man was capable was spastic convulsions that almost broke his bones.

The dying man's lungs burned with fire as the deoxygenated, yet poisonous blood filtered through them. The acidic chemicals ate away at his fragile lung tissue, letting blood seep through the tears. Trince coughed violently bringing up flecks of blood that burned on his lips and chin.

The former protector of the peace yearned for some of his own as his stomach turned itself inside out. His digestive system convulsed against the poison, creating a backpressure that forced Trince's most recent meals back through his throat. This choked him even more as he tried to gasp for air in this time of pain.

Even in this state of pre-death, the man was semi-alert to his surroundings. He could feel others pressing in on him. Whether they were people, animals, things, or even death it didn't matter, only that they were there and suffocating him. The only thing that kept them at bay was the aura of pure pain that this Force strong man emitted.

Trince had been instructed well by his teachers at the Academy. The survival instincts had been pounded into him so he would be able to live through some of the most severe torture. Nothing could have prepared him for this. There was no Jedi calming technique for a man so wrapped up in his own death through suffering that he couldn't remember his own name. No Jedi trance could be performed on a man whose own blood was slowly eating him inside out like boiling water in an ice cup.

There were brief moments when Trince could sense his need to live. Brief moments when blood, not yet fully poisoned, flowed through his brain, and he had a second of clarity. Those moments were few and growing further apart as the time went by.

Time had no meaning to him though. In the land under Coruscant, there was no literal time anyway. There were no sun or stars. There were no schedules followed by masses of people going about their business. In the underworld there was only darkness - darkness, pain, and misery.

Trince could feel all of these now. The lack of time made the suffering all the more hellish as he couldn't tell if he had been in this condition for seconds, hours, or years. Likewise he could not predict how much longer he would have to endure it.

He felt pain in every fiber of his being. Like two people in perfect love who see the body as the perfection of beauty, with no other purpose than to please each other, Trince now saw the body as the most beautiful torture machine imaginable. His own body knew him so well it was capable of prodding in places that were so vital and secret, Trince had little or no knowledge of them previous to this nightmarish existence. Now he wished nothing more than the ability to rip his heart from his chest with his bare hands just to watch it stop beating and to know the pain was over.

Trince also felt misery. Misery that he wouldn't be able to stop the pain on his own. Misery that this unimaginable agony would never end as his existence for eternity would be to endure the punishment of countless generations of sins visited upon him for no more reason than he was available at the time.

Then there was darkness. This was the worst. As terrible as the pain was, Trince could fathom its existence. As psychoticly depressing as the misery was, Trince could understand its depth. The darkness was impenetrable. He could neither see in nor past it. It existed around him as the ground hovers bellow you at the peak of a climb just moments before the deadly fall. You hang there, momentarily suspended against gravity, knowing that as soon as you begin to fall, it will be over shortly. Trince hovered, perfectly balanced on the tiniest of pins, with the weight of many worlds waiting to crash down. It is the moment the convicted endures after the word "fire" and before the blast of the gun ends his life. It is the moment a pilot experiences as an unavoidable asteroid looms in his path giving him just long enough to think about death before it consumes him in a ball of flame.

Trince lived in that moment. Only this moment did not last a fraction of a second. The time he endured it could not be measured. Not because it was too long, nor because it was too short, but because this moment transcended time. It wasn't a when, or a where, but a what. This moment defined Trince's entire existence, transforming him into a taunt rubber band ready to be snapped into death at any moment.

But the rubber band remained taunt. The gun would not fire. The asteroid didn't come any closer. The ground remained below, refusing to rush up and take him. The incredible weight remained balanced upon the young Jedi, threatening to crush him as he maintained his remarkable balancing act on the head of a pin.

Trince was afraid.

For the first time in his life, he understood fear. Not fear of the bogeyman in your closest. Nor the type of fear one feels before a test or a first date. But the fear that can only be seen as the perfect antithesis of peace. Fear that is so complete no bit of truth can remain. No bit of assurance such as ones next breath, or gravity remaining, or light continuing existed anywhere. There was no guarantee of anything remaining as it was the moment before. The world could end around him, every natural disaster happening at once, and he would not be surprised. In fact, the fear was so complete he was nearly at peace with it.

When someone is at peace they feel comfortable in their surroundings. Their home is secure above and around them. Their loved ones are cared for. Their future is secure and any worry that might arise can be easily handled. Trince was at a grotesque peace with his surroundings in such a way that he felt comfortable no good could possibly come from this episode. He was given such a surety through his Force enhanced fear that he would die and the world with him in one, huge, triumphant end that the anxiety one naturally feels before such an event seemed foolish.

The psychological analysis on such a situation had never been examined or even proposed. What reported situation, other than facing a super nova, was so utterly hopeless that the people involved seemed content with their situation? Nothing unexpected was going to happen, and they were at peace with that. Just because the expected, and assured, was so totally horrifying didn't change the fact that there was some evil calm about it.

Trince settled into a kind of half acceptance of his situation. His nerves remained on edge as they continued to fight off each wave of pain that racked through his body. His mind remained tortured by the images of leathery wings and fiery lava pools. His body still curled itself into the tightest ball it could, warding off the pressing of his surroundings. But his inner being found peace in the surety of his fear. The moment this dawned on him, his psyche revolted violently against it.

Trince was angry.

Anger is the word by definition, but it falls pathetically short in understanding the scope of utter and complete revulsion Trince felt. When you loose your tax receipt in the mail you become angry. When someone rear-ends your landspeeder at the multiplex you become extremely upset. When your team looses the smashball finals because the referee blows the last call of the game, you are beside yourself in fury.

Trince was in such a state of utter singular emotion that not one iota of his being could be considered anything other than pure animosity. The rage at his position and his momentary acceptance of it drove him to a fit of anger that exceeded anything imaginable. The entire Danzig system, all four hundred-some suns, could go nova at once and not reach one percentage point of Trince's fury. The injustice of his position was unfathomable to his tortured mind. He was innocent of any type of punishment equal to one-one millionth of what he was enduring.

The gods were torturing him for pleasure, but even the gods would not want to face the wrath that had been created in the bowls of Coruscant. Trince was a bubbling source of putrescence and filth so vile that the potency of the poison in his system paled in comparison to the ability of Trince's rage to simply end life.

The next logical step in dealing with injustice is placing the blame. In Trince's mind this went so far past the hunchback with the knife that had at first poisoned him that it was laughable to even bring him up. The blame for this type of anguish went to the source. Life was what was torturing him so. Death was merly the absence of life. It was this absence that was being dangled in front in front of him like an antidote to an infected patient. With the association of blame came hatred.

Trince was hate.

Trince did not hate; he was it. To him it was no longer a verb. It was not a state of mind but a state of being. Trince was not only hate, but his hatred - his self - was aimed at everything. His mother and father had brought him into this world, giving him the opportunity to feel this pain. His family had cared for him allowing him to live long enough to come to this terrible time in his life. The Academy had trained him, opening channels of his mind that now flowed with molten anguish and fiery hatred.

Trince's enmity with the world was so complete that for a brief moment at the peak of his malevolence he was apart from reality. He was an entity of such utter bitterness that space and time could not contain him. A vortex opened over his soul and sucked all that was good, all that was pure, and all that had hope into oblivion, leaving behind the a shell of what once was a righteous human being.

At this summit of animosity, Trince let out a yell that surpassed audio appreciation. A cry so full of anguish that every living thing within a hundred light years felt the ripple through the Force. Whether it be a slight shiver or a sudden heart attack, life within Trince's range was slightly altered.

Whether the fever had passed at this moment or Trince had simply decided to ignore it seemed unimportant as the young man stirred. He uncurled himself and looked about. Like a predator, he was on all fours, searching with eyes that had become glowing coals in the faint light of the underworld.

Trince got into a low crouch, breathing as if possessed of a demon, his exhalation capable of lighting wood on fire. A few of the hellish hounds that had pursued Trince, Han, and Lando to the place of Trince's recent struggle had returned to see what had happened. Trince was aware of their approach long before they were aware of him. Trince killed without thought, not even allowing the hounds the moment of realization he had just lived in. Instead the hounds died in mid-stride with no hint of danger before.

Trince made it to his feet. The time that had passed was still a mystery, but it seemed like eons. He was no longer the same person who had ran to and then collapsed on this spot. He had been changed, into what, he didn't even know. He still had some sense of his former self, and it was that former self that sent him in search of his friends.

***

Nine Jedi students stood in a tight circle. They were on the frigid world of Forinad. It had been two weeks since the asteroids had collided with the doomed planet, and the temperature of the planet was now that of Hoth. The one difference was there was no snow anywhere, giving the planet an eerie, alien look to it. Perception was impossible on this planet without a sun to regulate it, and the sun was locked securely behind the thick ash covering that existed in the atmosphere.

The area in which the Jedi students stood provided even more parallels to a newly discovered world. The pockmarked surface of the former mountain range looked like something from a horror holo. The landscape was truly ugly, the acid lakes had frozen into a gray ice that gave a semi-reflection of the ragged peaks that rose in a pathetic replacement of their former glory.

The Jedi stood in the center of a particularly deep, empty crater. Anakin was their leader and began to initiate the group spin. All nine students were holding hands with the two students on either side of them, but instead of extending their arms to make the biggest circle possible, their clasped hands were in the center of the circle. They levitated now, shoulder to shoulder, and slowly started to spin. They were all students, but under Anakin's guidance, they acted as cohesively as if they were all masters.

The spin gained speed quickly, and the centrifugal force was threatening to rip the circle open, not content to remain compact. Anakin and the others struggled hard to keep the circle closed while at the same time, funneling more speed into their turn. As soon as the force became to strong, Anakin gave the mental signal to release the circles hold. Each student let go of their Force to keep the circle small, and extended their arms from their side.

The circle expanded to its max diameter of a little over five meters in a fraction of a second. No normal human arm would be able to sustain the shock of the circle snapping open, much less be able to sustain a hand grip with the person next to them, but the Jedi were not normal. Also, unlike physics demanded the speed of the spinning Jedi did not slow when they expanded. This caused a huge shock wave do to the infinite inertial acceleration. The shock was represented by an enormous inverted cyclone that sprung into existence inside the circle.

The tip of the cyclone reached into the muddy shell that covered the enshrouded planet, and huge chunks of ash began pouring down the cyclone. The Jedi were spinning high above the deep crater that was now filling quickly. Anakin had attempted this technique by himself a week ago, and had only managed to remove as much ash total as this group of nine had removed in the first five seconds.

The Jedi were able to keep up this spin for only ten minutes. Fatigue wore on them quickly, and the mound beneath them had grown so quickly, that it took too much concentration to continually increase their levitation. When they were finished, they slowly lowered themselves to the new mountain they had created. The ash was packed so tightly it felt like solid rock. Anakin looked up at the sky and almost cried when he saw the beautiful sun shining through the hole they had created. The gap in the blanket covering was a couple kilometers in diameter, but already shrinking.

All the Jedi stared weakly into the sky and watched as over the next twenty minutes the pressure around the gap was too much and slowly shrunk the hole to nothing. Instead of defeat, though, they felt exuberance. They could all sense that the density in the sky above them for many kilometers in all directions was much less then it had been before, and maybe after several days they could open a hole that could be maintained.

The students were exhausted, but Anakin wanted to keep them focused on their tasks. They all wore environment suits and Anakin talked through his helmet com link. "We need to do this over the populated regions. If we can create several holes and maybe maintain them with shielded probes, we might be able to avoid the ice age phase entirely."

As it was, the Republic scientists were predicting the oceans would start to freeze considerably in the next three weeks. Already there was ice over the vast oceans of the planet, and a daring (and light) soul could walk across certain parts of them. There had been no glacier activity yet, other than some of the ice impinging on the beachfronts.

The Jedi would need some rest before they could go to work again, but Anakin was right. Now that they had been successful, they needed to find a good locale in the populated section of the world.

***

Wedge read the reports handed to him with grim realization. The oxygen level on Denor was all but gone, the huge forests that were kept in moderate supply on the heavily populated planet burned to the ground. Wedge still didn't understand everything about what had happened, but he was beginning to get a much clearer picture. He understood how mega ton rocks could wipe out life on a planet and how it was very likely that Denor would never emerge from its ice age. He understood how a planet that relied on controlled forests as opposed to random vegetation for oxygen could be vulnerable to this kind of damage. He also understood how necessary oxygen was to support life on a planet.

The eon long winter that was going to befall this planet that had lent the system its name would deprive the surface of sunlight. In order for life to reemerge after the blanket was removed there had to be adequate conditions. Because asteroids had torched the surface, there would be no dormant plant system. Because volcanoes had erupted all over the planet, all the soil would be acidic. And because there was no oxygen left and no way to produce it, there would be no way for life to re-evolve. Actually, Wedge thought to himself the weight of the ash blanket that covered the planet would probably put so much pressure on the depleted atmosphere, the whole molecular structure would break down, leaving a barren, uninhabitable ball off rock.

Wedge understood all of these things very well, what he didn't understand was how this could happen. This wasn't a freak accident, he didn't need Force sensitivity to tell that. This hadn't just been a fleet of asteroids that lumbered into a system - they had been aimed. Wedge had looked at the sensor records of the asteroids' approach and termination and could see plainly that no other part of the system had been hurt except the inhabited regions. Space was so vast, and for the most part, so empty that the mere chance of two things colliding were infinitesimal. That said nothing for chances of an enormous asteroid field splitting up into two parts and heading right towards the inhabited planets.

This had to have been planned. The asteroids' origin could only be traced so far back into the Danzig system before the record of their existence disappeared. Wedge had half a mind to calculate their trajectory through the chaotic system, find their source, and take his fleet to investigate. He knew he couldn't do that though. The ship he had brought into the system along with the few ships that had been sent ahead of him and the official Republic aid fleet was more than busy evacuating the remaining citizens of the system.

Wedge was sick of the work. It wasn't that he didn't care for these people's lives, on the contrary, his restlessness was fueled by their situation. Someone had planned this. Someone had taken great care in making sure this asteroid field would strike these worlds and destroy the Denorians' lives. Wedge didn't need to supervise the rescue mission, but he didn't have an adequate reason to leave to check out his hunches.

From the sensor data he had examined, he found there were several asteroids that had not hit a planet and had flown through the system. There was a good chance that if these asteroids had been guided here, there might be some trace evidence remaining on those rocks. The only problem was there were no ships able to go after these asteroids. The Republic ships involved in the rescue operation were very large or very small. Wedge had brought a Calamarian Cruiser and four fighters. The fleet that had left before Wedge but on a slower hyperspace route had consisted of two Calamarian Cruisers and two medical Frigates. The official Republic rescue team had brought three more cruisers, five medical Frigates, four Bulk Cruisers, two Assault Frigates, and two Corvettes. Each of the Calamarain Cruisers, no doubt, was equipped with a squadron or two of fighters. What Wedge needed was a freighter. A fighter was far to small to carry or allow the examination of an asteroid. The next biggest ship available was a Corelian Corvette, which had a skeleton crew of over 20 men.

Wedge was the highest ranking officer involved with this aid mission and anything he said would be obeyed, but he knew he couldn't take any of the larger ships away from their duties of saving the sick and dying. Still, he knew if he could find a way to get to the runaway asteroids, he would be able to find out exactly where those rocks had come from. As it was, he realized he just had to be patient and let this part of the mission go on. He didn't know how things were going back on Coruscant, but if they needed more information as to how the disaster had occurred, then he would feel justified in pulling a Corvette off duty to check the asteroids.

Chapter 2 "Mara's Invisible Friend"

Two hours after her meeting with Snotzenexer found Mara sitting at a corner table in a seedy drinking establishment in the lower levels of Coruscant. She had come to Coruscant for two reasons: she wanted to confront Snotzenexer and she wanted to get her lightsaber back. She had given the weapon Luke had originally given to her back to him after they had left Sanson's custody. The Republic officials were a little reluctant in giving her the murder weapon, but had to bow to her weapon license that each Jedi had to have to validate their ownership of such a lethal weapon as a lightsaber.

What was she going to do? Snotzenexer was of course right. The guard had been changed and everything was going to be different now. The former leaders had been removed with Mara graciously left alone. She hadn't really been a leader, but it would be ignorant of her to say that she hadn't visibly chosen a side.

When had her focus shifted? There was a time not too long ago when she would have jumped at the type of opportunity that had just been offered to her. There would be no higher position in the commercial realm of the entire galaxy than the person that Snotzenexer would eventually appoint to the job she had been offered. In fact, in a few years, that lucky being would be the wealthiest person in the entire galaxy if they ran the operation right. Well, they would be the second wealthiest person in the galaxy. Snotzenexer would remain on top until he made a mistake, which didn't seem like it would come any time soon.

Now Mara seemed more concerned about right and wrong than earning a credit. It actually wouldn't even be wrong to accept the job from Snotzenexer. There would be no one above her from whom she would have to take orders. Besides, she would be able to keep a close eye on Snotzenexer to make sure he didn't try to start moving the government in the wrong direction. The reason she came upon for not joining up with the refurbished Republic was she thought she would be betraying her friends. Friends. There's a word she hadn't used in a long time.

"Hey, darling, care to have a little fun tonight?"

Mara looked up briefly from the drink she was nursing. A large, dirty man was standing in front of her table, leering drunkenly at her. "Maybe another time, stud."

"No, how about now?"

There was something in his voice that caught Mara's attention. She looked back down at her drink and scanned the man in front of her with the Force. Though he appeared to be drunk and was slurring his speech, she could detect a very clear mind. She also noticed that in a bar where most people kept to themselves, there were at least three other people paying special attention to this confrontation. Mara could think of no reason why someone would want to ambush her, unless Snotzenexer had sent them.

"Sure, why not," Mara said, with as much apathy as she could muster. The man across the table watched careful as Mara stood. She reached for her half finished glass of ale and brought it to her mouth to finish. The next move was slow on purpose. She stopped the glass halfway to her face and threw it at the man across from her.

The big man registered the hostile attack in time to draw his blaster just as the glass exploded against his face. Mara's outstretched hand yanked the drawn blaster out of the man's hand with the Force, and she quickly flipped the table up in front of her. The opposite edge of the table caught the thug under the chin and he went down, still pawing the alcohol out of his eyes.

From across the room, two others drew blasters and fired, but Mara had the table in front of her as a shield and returned fire. She caught one of them in the shoulder and the other in the chest. She had felt a fourth mind in her earlier evaluation of the situation, but he was nowhere to be seen. The first thug started to get up, and Mara slammed the table back on its legs, smacking the man's forehead and knocking him out. She leaped onto the table and survived the scene. One of the men she had shot was dead, slumped against the bar, his body still sitting on a stool. The other man was unconscious with pain and had a wound that would bleed to death if not treated. He was lying across a table in another corner of the bar. The rest of the patronage, about five people, continued eating and drinking as if nothing had happened.

Mara hopped down from her perch, keeping the stolen blaster at the ready, knowing there was someone else. She made her way unhindered to the door of the establishment and exited into the fading daylight. The lower levels of Coruscant were already as dark as they would get, and the little light from scattered glow lamps didn't do much in aiding sight. The high ceiling of this level was just as good as open air, and the street that ran in front of the bar was lined with several other rundown businesses.

There was a small sampling of the alien population wandering about, and Mara didn't think she was going to be able to track anyone in these conditions. She stepped away from the entrance, not wanting to highlight her movements with the light behind her. She decided she didn't need any additional trouble and headed for the lift that had brought her to this level.

"Going somewhere, Mara?"

Mara turned sharply, crouching as she did, her blaster pointed unwaveringly at the voice, but there was nothing there. Her Jedi senses were stretching to their limits as she slowly worked her back up to a wall. A stun blast came out of the darkness in front of her, but she had felt it as it was fired, and stepped smoothly out of the way. The shot had come from an alley across the street and was not joined by others. Mara still couldn't sort out any individuals from her danger sense, which was screaming at her.

She began to walk slowly toward the lift again when two more bolts came her way. She avoided these by ducking into an alley next to the building she was up against. She stopped suddenly as she ran headlong into a huge man. Before she could react, he had both of his mammoth hands on her arms, pinning them to her side. Mara struggled only briefly, realizing the futility in it. This man had to be over two meters tall and weighed close to 130 kilograms.

Mara managed to hold on to her blaster and shot at the monster's feet. The shot wasn't aimed and missed in between the large legs. The man lifted her up, still holding her by her arms and shook her violently. The blaster came out of her hand and clattered to the ground. Mara felt like a rag doll in the ogre's grasp and could feel more thugs approaching. She allowed herself to quiet her anxiety and fill her body with the Force. The giant held her right above her elbows. Mara bent her elbows and grabbed on the underside of the man's forearms. Exhaling slowly, she concentrated all her energy into her next motion. She pushed up suddenly on his arms, forcing him straighten his elbows and allowing Mara to get her feet back on the ground. Continuing the motion smoothly, she dropped to her back and flipped the man over her head. She threw him as though he weighed no more than she did, ramming his head into the permacrete brick building behind her. His grip went slack on her arms, and she scrambled out from underneath the big man.

She was back on her feet in a second and was surrounded by four men. Mara had a flash of recognition as her eyes passed over one of the men, but didn't have time to dwell on it as they opened fire. Mara's hand made a lightning movement for her lightsaber, but she was stunned into blackness before her hand even closed on the handle.

***

Mara awoke suddenly. She was uncomfortably wet and quickly realized she was chained to a wall that was dripping some very fowl smelling liquid. She had been stripped of her clothes and was wearing only her underwear, which was now soaked with the putrid mess that oozed down the wall. Her arms were spread apart, chained at the wrists to the stone wall behind her. Her feet were a couple centimeters off the ground. Needless to say, she was not in a very comfortable position. The room was very dimly lit, not allowing any information to be gathered other than it was a simple four walled room, not more than six meters along any wall.

Mara suddenly had the feeling she wasn't alone. To her right she could sense another presence very close. She had never experienced this species before, and it radiated power like a Jedi, but there was no Force presence there. In the dim light, with her Force enhanced sight, she could tell it was humanoid, though the exact outline was a little hazy. No, not hazy, hairy. As she looked closer, she could see that the creature was covered with hair. He looked a little short to be a Wookiee, and his facial features appeared more canine than any Wookiee she had ever seen. Her companion was chained to the wall in a similar fashion to her own imprisonment. He was also awake, and noticed Mara's scrutiny.

"Good morning, fair lady," he said with a voice that betrayed his gruff outer appearance. It sounded almost musical with only a hint of a growl.

"Is it morning?" Mara asked.

"I've been told that any time you wake up is morning."

"Yes," Mara replied, remembering one of her conversations with Luke, "I think I've been told that too. Though that is sort of hedging the question." For some reason Mara felt very comfortable next to this alien.

"They carried you in about five hours ago. I can not know how long you were in their custody before you were brought here, but unless you were apprehended in that attire, I believe it safe to say that they performed a thorough search of your person which could have taken up to an hour."

"Morning is a good enough approximation for me," Mara decided, a little startled by this creature's speech.

"Please don't let my appearance fool you, I am quite cultured."

"Not to mention fluent in reading minds," Mara added under her breath, though she was sure that with the creature's pointed ears, he would easily hear her.

"Not in reading minds, good lady, but in reading faces."

"In this light?" Mara queried.

"Only in this light," he explained. "My people are a people of the darkness."

The two lapsed into silence. Mara spent a few moments enacting a levitation trance, attempting to alleviate some of the stress from her arms. "How long have you been here?"

"Call me Ra'tok," he said, hearing the unasked question in the end of her comment. "I've been hanging on this cursed wall for a little more than a day. If I may ask, what have you done to disturb our mutual friend Ronderj, such that he has deemed it necessary to torture you before he kills you?"

Ronderj! Mara remembered the face she had seen before she had been shot. Querell Ronderj, the ruthless pirate that she had run into in the Carowin sector. "Unless he has been hired by someone else, he's probably a little mad about the prosthetic I forced him to wear."

"You are the one who relieved him of the use of his left arm," Ra'tok's laughter sounded rather close to barking. "I congratulate you, fine woman."

"Please," Mara said in response to the benevolent titles that her companion had been assigning her, "the name is Mara."

"Pleased to meet your acquaintance Mara."

"If I may ask," Mara said, echoing Ra'tok's earlier question, "what have you done to anger him?"

Ra'tok fell silent for a few moments. Before Mara could retract the question Ra'tok answered it. "He is a little short handed because of me. He and his band found it necessary to hit a ship of helpless refugees from Nauranty. The ship consisted of mostly women and children. I was along as their guardian. I failed and Ronderj took the ship. I escaped, but he sold the refugees into slavery. I have been after him ever since. He finally caught me."

Mara could tell that this creature had the utmost moral character, yet was definitely not one with whom you wanted to be enemies. Mara could feel the presence of several men coming toward the room. "It sounds as if we are about to have company, Mara."

Mara took notice of Ra'tok's exceptional hearing, and waited patiently as Ronderj and his torture crew made their way into the room. The door opened and the lights were turned on suddenly. The glow lamps were many and quite intense, causing Mara to gasp and squint hard against the unexpected glare. Ra'tok didn't take to the lights nearly as well as his human counter part. "Aaaaarghhhhhh!!"

"Oh," Ronderj walked through the door first, "I'm sorry. I forgot all about Defels' abhorrence of bright light." The lights went off again. "Is that better?" Ra'tok growled menacingly toward the pirate. "That's what I thought," he said and flipped the lights back on.

Ra'tok nearly ripped his chains out of the wall trying to get at the pompous man. Ronderj smiled mockingly at the gestures of hatred, but Mara noticed he also kept his distance, regardless of the restraints. "And how is the beautiful Mara Jade doing this morning?"

"Fit and chipper, your grace," she responded, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Though I am a bit cold."

"Ah, I'm sorry but we had to make sure that you weren't carrying any tracking devices. We can't have you being followed, can we?" As if to exaggerate Mara's near nakedness, Ronderj was wearing extravagant clothes. He wore a silk blue long-sleeve shirt under a smart black vest with several gold chains hanging from the pockets. His gray pants were baggy and stuffed into his tight, black boots. His blaster and holster were even decorative. Mara looked at his left hand protruding from the blue shirt. It wasn't as good a prosthetic as Luke had gotten. It looked more like Threepio's hand, though with a flesh tone.

Two other people had followed Ronderj into the room. They were dressed in non-descript black and gray and both wore heavy blasters that were as undecorative as possible. They were big men, not as big as the one Mara had dealt with in the alley, but very formidable. She noticed one of them was carrying a very long vibro knife.

"You see, Mara, when we heard you were in the area, we couldn't pass up this chance for retribution." Ronderj turned to Ra'tok. "You see, my Defel friend, when I hit her ship a while back, we told her and her copilot to stand down and be boarded. They didn't listen. There were only two of them when there were ten of us. Any sane pair would have cut their losses, but no, Miss Jade and her dark-skinned, gambler friend had to put up a fight. They killed seven of my men, and I took a heavy blaster bolt in the shoulder. We got the bleeding to stop, but by the time we got back to base so I could receive medical attention, the arm was lost. This was over fifteen years ago and I've lived with this cursed arm ever since." He hoisted his left arm rather clumsily.

Ronderj turned back to Mara. "Now before we show you what it's like to loose an arm," one of the thugs in the background was brandishing the vibro-blade, "I'd like to ask you one question." Ronderj reached slowly into his vest and pulled out Mara's lightsaber. Mara's heart skipped a beat at the sight of the much-needed weapon. "What is this?"

Mara was shocked at first. They didn't know what a lightsaber was? But then they were a pirate band who didn't usually operate in this area. Why they were on Coruscant was a mystery to Mara. They usually worked out on the fringe, paying little mind to galactic events. Even if they had heard of Skywalker or the Jedi, they probably had never actually seen a lightsaber. They definitely had no reason to suspect Mara was Force sensitive.

"Haven't you turned it on?" Mara asked.

Ronderj looked at Mara as if she had just bestowed upon him the most repulsive of insults. "Yea, sure, I'll just turn this thing on and hundreds of Republic guards will be on top of us in a second. We all saw you reaching for it when we attacked you. It isn't a blaster, so what could it be for but to radio for back up."

"You're wrong," Mara said, shaking her head slightly, "it's not a comlink or a weapon."

"Then what, pray tell, is it?" Mara had waited for exactly this moment. Ronderj was now holding the weapon out to Mara in a very limp hand, looking at her with expectancy.

Ra'tok was a Defel warrior and a very good one. He had risen to the highest level in his pack back on his home planet, had been blessed by the temple, and given leave, a blessing that was given to only a few of the Defel. He had a duty to protect the weak and helpless against the forces of evil. He was amazingly quick and capable of such feats of dexterity and coordination that he was startled or amazed by very little. What Mara did next was something that, even after it had been explained to him, Ra'tok found impossible.

The lightsaber leaped out of Ronderj's hand and flew into Mara's. The oddity of such an event caught everyone off guard and gave Mara the time she needed. She ignited the weapon, rotated her wrist, and cut the chain holding her right arm in place. Ra'tok was on her right, and she spun away from him, pivoting on her secured left arm as two blaster bolts scorched the area where her body had just been. She cut the remaining chain and rolled back to the right in front of Ra'tok as two more bolts smashed into the stone wall behind her. She came upright now, shielding Ra'tok from the fire as the two thugs had drawn their blasters and were trying to track down the elusive woman. Ronderj hadn't moved.

Thinking the erect Mara standing about three meters in front of them was finally an easy target, both thugs fired at her. The lightsaber moved on its own accord, reflecting the bolts into the ceiling and floor. Both men paused slightly at the dramatic display. Mara hurled her lightsaber at one of the rigid men and dove at the body of the other. One of them was dismembered while the other underestimated the jumping ability of a Jedi and hadn't braced himself adequately for the hit he took. Mara's shoulder nailed him in the mid section and the air left his lungs as his arms went high, his blaster shooting out a piece of plaster in the ceiling. The man was unable to break his fall with his upraised arms, and his head bounced viciously off the stone floor.

Mara got up quickly, turning toward the remaining man in the room. Ronderj had his blaster drawn and was already pulling the trigger. Mara's lightsaber leaped into her hand and deflected bolt after bolt. Mara noticed his grip on the weapon weaken in frustration, and she ripped it from his grasp with the Force. As the weapon flew through the air toward her, Mara stepped forward and smashed it into oblivion with her lightsaber like she was an all-star smashball player.

Ronderj looked completely shocked as Mara walked up to him slowly. Ronderj tried to take a step back but felt the cold stone of a wall behind him. Mara kept walking until the tip of her lightsaber was nestled under the pirate's chin. He was shivering with fright. Without his bodyguards to protect him he looked pathetically small. In fact, for a pirate, he was pretty diminutive in physical stature. He might even be small enough that . . .

"Take off your shirt."

"What?" Ronderj asked, swearing he had heard wrong.

"Remove your pretty little shirt," Mara repeated, stressing each syllable and burning his chin with her sword.

Ronderj quickly slipped off his vest, unbuttoned his shirt, and took it off. Mara summoned one of the fallen blasters to her hand. "Take off your pants."

"Listen here Mara-"

Mara lifted the blaster but didn't point it at the bare-chested pirate. Instead she turned it toward Ra'tok. She was still looking fully at Ronderj when she fired two shots at the Defel. Each bolt took out a chain that secured the prisoner. "Ra'tok, could you please take his pants off?"

Before the vicious warrior could even take a step towards the frightened man, he had kicked off his boots and was throwing his pants at Mara. With Ra'tok standing over the pirate, Mara got dressed. The shirt was a little big, but being a man's shirt on a woman, it fit nicely. It was a good thing the pants had been baggy because Mara found she had a little longer legs than the pirate leader. After she had put on the boots, she clipped her lightsaber to a belt loop, holstered her stolen blaster, and turned to leave.

As much as Ra'tok wanted to end this pitiful man's life, he was a being of honor and wouldn't stoop to kill an unarmed man. "Wait!" Ronderj screamed, as they both turned to go. "You can't just leave me here. If you lock the door I might be in here for days before someone checks on me."

Mara stopped, sighed deeply, and turned around to face the pirate standing four meters away. "Besides," he continued, "what am I supposed to do with this?" He raised his bionic arm towards them.

Mara's mental alarms went off just as the secret weapon compartment of the prosthetic powered up. She drew her lightsaber and was just in time to block the first bolt. The arm was not a rapid-fire weapon, and she covered the distance between them before he could fire again. Her blade came down, cleanly slicing the appendage off above the elbow. "Get a new one."

Mara turned away from him for the last time, and walked directly to the door. Ra'tok spent a few moments admiring her handy-work. "What have you done?" the small man screamed.

"I believe, my dear sir," Ra'tok said with mock respect, "that the good woman has just disarmed you." With a light, barking laugh the Defel followed Mara out of the room, turned off the lights, and locked the door.

Out in the hallway, Mara saw they had two choices in direction. "Ra'tok, do you know which way we can get out of here?"

"I'm afraid I was also unconscious when they brought me to this dungeon."

The hallway had obviously been thrown together by the same interior decorator that had designed the room they were just in. Small glow torches lit the way in the two meter, square, stone corridor. Mara checked each direction against her danger sense and picked the appropriate path. They walked quickly and quietly, Mara admiring the physical form of her companion. He was the purist killing machine she had ever seen. Ra'tok was built like a Noghri, his muscles were like iron cables that rolled under his fur as he moved. He was bigger than the Noghri though, outweighing Leia's former body guards by twenty kilograms. He also appeared much smarter.

Mara stopped. "There are people ahead."

Ra'tok was not close enough to hear anything, but realized Mara had some sort of magic about her. "How many are there?"

"Two, I think."

"We can not sound the alarm," Ra'tok said. "I will take care of them. Come when you no longer sense them."

"How are you-"

"You will see," he said with a smile on his lips. And then he vanished. Mara could still feel him nearby, but he had simply disappeared from sight. "Or maybe you will not see," the invisible Ra'tok chuckled.

Mara could sense him running down the passage ahead of her, but could hear absolutely nothing. A few moments later, the two presence she had felt disappeared and Mara knew that Ra'tok had reached the sentries. She hastened to follow, and nearly yelped when she saw the two guards lying on the floor with their throats cut. Ra'tok was visible again and stood over the men, one of his retractable claws still visible. Mara knew Luke would have scolded her about the needless killing. Mara could have just as easily knocked the men unconscious, and they wouldn't have sounded the alarm. But Mara could see in Ra'tok's eyes that he thought of these men as little higher than the scum that had been sliding down the dungeon wall. They were unwanted vermin, and Ra'tok was the exterminator. In another light, they were armed men who would just as soon shoot them on sight as sound the alarm. "We need to keep moving."

Mara picked up one of the blaster rifles left by the guards and slung the long-range weapon over her shoulder. The guards had been positioned at a four-way intersection. Mara glanced down each of the three passages and picked one. The two of them walked together and noticed at once when the floor started to slope upward. As well as their altitude increasing, the light also increased. Mara heard Ra'tok growl slightly at the prospect of walking through brightly lit rooms, and she logged this oddity along with all the other questions she wished to ask her new found friend. Mara motioned that there were two more guards up ahead, but before Ra'tok could go take care of them, Mara held his shoulder back.

"Let me take care of these." She crept up behind them, still out of sight around a turn. Once she got close enough. She concentrated for a few brief moments. After about ten seconds she motioned that it was clear. Ra'tok turned the corner to see the two guards lying on the ground.

"They still live?"

Mara could tell that the question was more a "why?" than anything else. "They sleep," she simply responded. Ra'tok accepted this alternative and moved silently over the men.

The two of them were now in the upper levels of the pirate base, the potential for activity all around them. They had gone up a flight of steps and were standing on a clean white floor with gray walls. Mara crept down a hallway, but Ra'tok grabbed her arm and pulled her in the opposite direction. "I smell unconditioned air in this direction, Mara."

"I know," she responded, "but I have to check something in the pirate base. You don't have to come with me."

"I will go with you," he responded. Mara didn't mind, feeling very comfortable with the Defel in toe.

It was something Ronderj had said that was sticking in her mind. "When we heard you were in the area . . ." was what he had said. Who had told him she was in the area? She had never been to this part of Coruscant before, so the locals had no way of knowing who she was. Besides, she hadn't noticed anyone giving her any special notice, and her Jedi senses would have been able to pick up someone recognizing her. The only answer she could come to was she had been followed briefly enough to get a general idea of where she was heading and then Ronderj's band was informed. Snotzenexer had done it. Now she just wanted some proof.

The com room was down the hall on the right. It was still pretty early in the morning so the hallway was deserted. Mara sensed two people inside the com room. She would need one of them to access the computer for her, but two of them would be too much of a problem to control. "We're going in this room," she told Ra'tok. "There are two people inside. I'm going to shoot one, but I need the other alive. I want you to make it perfectly clear to him that if he doesn't do as I ask his life is forfeit."

Ra'tok nodded and went invisible. Mara took a breath, drew her stolen blaster pistol, and thumbed the setting to stun. She opened the door and felt Ra'tok breeze by here so fast that she nearly missed her shot. The room was rectangular and the door was at the left end on a long wall. There was one man sitting across from, and a little to the right, of the door and a second man on the other side of the room. The man in front of Mara turned around at the unexpected entry and received Mara's stun blast full in the face. Mara winced as she realized she had probably just scrambled the man's brain pretty badly, but her thoughts were quickly brought back to the urgency of the situation. The other man was already reaching for the alarm when Ra'tok materialized right in front of him. Before the computer junkie could respond to the apparition, Ra'tok had a claw from each hand secured against opposite sides of the man's neck.

"Move one muscle," the Defel growled in a voice barely audible, "and your jugulars will be hash." The man gulped, causing one of Ra'tok's claws to draw a drop of blood.

Mara moved over to the console where he was sitting. "I want you to access all the messages your group received yesterday after sixteen hundred."

The man's fingers were a blur of motion as he kept his posture perfect, not daring to slouch against Ra'tok's unforgiving claws. Within seconds there was a list of messages on the screen. "Open that one," Mara pointed to a message with the subject "Mutual Interest." Mara read the message quickly.

"You might be happy to know that a certain red-haired trader will be visiting your neck of the woods in the next few hours. I believe you and she crossed paths once a few years ago. She gave you quite a problem last time, leaving you looking for a hand. It would be considered a favor to me if she lost her way while in your neighborhood."

The message was signed "a friend in a high place." That solidified it for Mara. Few people had a way with words like Snotzenexer did. Mara looked up from the computer screen, "Thank-you very much."

Ra'tok realized she was done with the man and struck him violently across the head with his palm. The man flew out of his chair and hit the floor in a dreamless slumber. The two escapees made their way back into the hall and ran toward the exit. There were four guards at the entrance to the lair, but Mara blasted two while Ra'tok clobbered the others, and they were free.

After running a ways, Mara looked back and saw that the entrance to the hideout blended nicely with the surrounding structures, making the building look like just another unassuming warehouse in the lower levels of Coruscant.

Chapter 3 "Exercises in Futility"

Husband and wife sat across from each other at breakfast, Sanson was eating her hot cereal while Snotzenexer was ignoring his plate and reading the morning news on a data pad. "Are we still in power?"

Snotzenexer looked up from his reading. "Momentarily. Though we could be better off."

"We can always be better off. How do you propose we get there?"

"How about those Republic pilots we captured?"

"Them," Sanson started, thinking of what to say, "they are in progress. We have another recruit to face their ace."

"Does it look hopeful?"

"He won't last two minutes."

"Who?"

"The recruit!" Sanson answered harshly. She had that feeling that Snotzenexer wasn't really listening to her.

"Why don't we clone them?"

Now she knew he wasn't listening. "We've been over this. They are too tall. All of them. None of them will come close to fitting in a modified TIE cockpit. We still aren't confident enough with the cloning process to alter their physical stature without the risk of changing anything else."

"Oh."

"Alex! Are you listening to anything I'm saying? We are a team here. You take care of the government. I take care of the military. We need to communicate better."

Snotzenexer had the datapad lowered a little and his eyes were half closed. Sanson had seen the look before. He was in the process of thinking some plan all the way through. He was analyzing every possible scenario and working out possible responses to each action. "I know what she's going to do," he finally said.

"Who?!"

"Mara Jade. She's going to rescue Skywalker."

"Of course she is. But she's only going to try."

"She will succeed unless we take further action."

"So why don't we just kill her?"

"The same reason we just didn't kill Skywalker. There a few people you can not just kill whenever you want to. If Mara died, people would notice. Those people would go looking for answers. They would find us. Then we would have to kill more people. No one is looking for answers about Luke, are they? No. If we had had him killed when he tried to storm my office, people would have demanded answers, and we would have had to come up with a story. There are tricks to disposing of important people."

"What's the trick with Mara Jade?"

"Tractor beams."

***

Admiral Sanson was still trying to figure out her husband's response as she rode the turbo lift in her Super Star Destroyer. Sometimes she wished that either he was just as dumb as everyone else was or that she was just as smart as he was. Of course in the end everything always worked out, but until you got to the end, things always seemed to get hairy.

The lift doors opened and she stepped into the 185th's private quarters. There was a lot of room on a Super Star Destroyer, and Sanson had found it necessary to section off a small part of it to facilitate this odd addition to the fleet. In reality, Sanson was now an admiral in the Republic Navy, and the three pilots whom she held captive were also members of the same navy. Since she was their commander now, she could order them into solitude if she really wanted. It was obviously stretching the rules a little, seeing as how they were captured while she was still part of the Empire, but that was life.

This small section of the Super Star Destroyer was isolated from the rest of the ship so these three youths never had any chance to interact with anyone else. There was a tech station with three different TIE models, extensive living quarters and an advanced flight simulator. Sanson was armed with a blaster, but she knew none of the boys would attack her, not because they feared her blaster prowess, though they should, but they knew she would be missed.

No one seemed to notice that she had entered their little world. The lift was sectioned off from the rest of the area with a force field. Sanson hadn't felt safe with such an easy way out of their imprisonment. They had tried to put a code on the lift, but the three pilots had cracked it before the lift had brought the code setter all the way back to the bridge.

Sanson looked at the three pilots working in the tech room. They were currently taking apart a TIE Interceptor, trying to see if it was possible to realign the engines with side mounted laser canons. "Jon," Sanson called to the group. The youngest of the three friends turned his head to regard the admiral's beacon. "Get over here. We have another recruit to try."

Jon picked up a rag to wipe some grease off his hands. "Be back in a second or two guys." Vince and Bep just sighed at their cocky friend, but couldn't deny that he was probably right. Unless this new guy was really good, Jon would finish him off in a couple seconds. If not, it would take him a couple minutes. No one had lasted even three minutes yet.

Jon walked over to the simulator where the admiral was waiting. "Where'd you pick up this guy?" Jon asked like he always did.

"Moisture farmer from Tatooine," was Sanson's traditional response.

"Should be fun," Jon completed the scripted intro to the fight. "What are we flying to day?"

"He wants to fly an X-wing," Sanson responded. "You of course know that you can pick any ship you want."

"And you know that I'm going to pick the same thing he does." Jon got in the machine after he programmed in his choice of ship and armament. "Who knows, I might even put my S-foils in attack position this time."

Sanson sighed, but knew that the cocky pilot was not exaggerating. Last time he had flown in the X-wing he had made his opponent burn out his engine by attempting an impossible maneuver. He then got a solid lock with a torpedo and wasted him, not firing one shot from his laser canons.

Sanson watched the display screen on the outside of the simulator, seeing exactly what Jon was. The two combatants started facing each other about five hundred klicks apart. "He's already trying to get a lock on me," Jon screamed for Sanson's sake. "What's wrong with this guy? Doesn't he know how to savor a battle? I might have to play with him a while first."

Sanson watched as Jon kept a straight path right into the missile lock. Tone was acquired almost immediately. Both X-wings stayed on the same elevated plane as they flew towards each other. The recruit fired his torpedo as soon as he had gotten a lock and Jon flew right into it. He focused his targeting computer on the small projectile. The only way this would work was if he never deviated from his course. It was next to impossible to hit one torpedo with another, unless they both kept a straight path. It took a long time to get a lock on the speedy object, and when Jon did, it was merely seconds away from impact.

Jon had to time it perfectly. If he fired and then dove out of the way, the missile aimed at him would veer down too, and his shot would miss. He had to fire, wait for impact, and then dive out of the way, or at least come as close as he could.

Jon waited a few precious seconds and fired. He waited another second, and then twisted into a spiraling dive. The torpedoes struck each other, creating a massive explosion right above his ship. Jon's opponent would briefly think he had scored a direct hit, his sensors in the area of the explosion not being able to pick up Jon's X-wing for about two seconds.

Jon looped back up and aimed at the position where he had last seen his opponent. Typical of a rookie pilot making a kill, the recruit had come to an almost stand still to watch the explosion. Jon had seen many pilots in real battle celebrate a kill only to get vaporized a few seconds later. Jon, unlike he had bragged, locked his S-foils into attack position, and activated his four fire-linked laser cannons. All four blasts made solid contact with their target, hitting the prone X-wing on the underside of the cockpit. Jon could have finished him, with another shot, but wanted to leave him alive.

The other pilot needed to get out of the way, and expectedly simply shot straightforward. Jon executed a one-eighty, bootlegger turn, flipping his craft over along its longitudinal axis. He pulled in right behind the recruit and watched as his opponent did all the textbook moves to shake his trail. "Try something original," Jon screamed as he made the expected counter to each of the maneuvers.

All the while the recruit tried to shake him, Jon had acquired a missile lock, and could have let fly at any time, but didn't. "Going for the record on length of missile lock," he informed Sanson.

"Stop playing with him and put him away," Sanson scolded. "I have more important things to do."

"Yes, sir." The next move the recruit tried was one that Jon had perfected. The "Scissors" involved several dips and dives while adjusting speed, forcing the trail to overshoot repeatedly. The result was to have the trail overshoot by too much and be forced out front. Jon knew where this pilot was going to emerge from the maneuver, and instead of following the loopy path, he made a direct route to the location and waited patiently. Two seconds later the unsuspecting X-wing pulled out of a climb right in front of Jon and the tall ace let the recruit have it. He unloaded each of his laser canons three times, each scoring a direct hit on the other X-wing's engine compartment, which was more than enough to blow the craft to pieces.

The screen in the simulator went blank and began to scroll through the statistics of the last run. Jon didn't bother to look at them knowing they were meaningless. Until Jon fought against a truly skilled opponent, the stats would continue to be meaningless. Sanson sighed at the futility of the whole experiment.

She of course was looking for an ace pilot. Someone she could clone and build a fleet of fighters. The Empire's philosophy had always been one of the swarm tactic. They had felt that by outnumbering the opponent two or even three to one, the overbalance would offset any skill or technological advantage the enemy might posses. This was becoming more and more of a problem, and had eventually led to the fall of the Empire. X-wing's turned into E-wings. Y-wings were replaced by B-wings. Each new advancement was faster, stronger, and possessed more firepower than its predecessors. The Empire meanwhile still flew TIE fighters, interceptors, and bombers. There were a few advanced TIE's available, but they took a considerably skillful pilot to operate.

As far as skill in pilots, the Empire simply didn't have enough time to produce skillful pilots because they were loosing them at alarming rates. On the Republic's side, there were so many willing recruits they were able to pick and choose among the pilots to obtain the most skillful.

Sanson and her techs were in the process of improving the TIE's to create a more imposing fleet. She had to do it quietly, of course, because since she was now a member of the Republic fleet, she had access to anyone of their fighters and could stock her fleet with them at a snap of her fingers. The problem of course was then she would have to fill the cockpits with people who were loyal to the Republic.

Sanson turned away from the simulator in disgust and didn't say a word as she walked away from the young ace. She would find someone who could beat him, she knew she would.

***

Mara was relaxing under the nozzle of a hot shower. She had already exhausted the stall's offering of soaps and perfumes and found that the grime that had been soaking into her back while she was hanging on that cursed cell wall did wash out. She was in a health resort she knew of on the upper level of Coruscant. It was only a couple kilometers from the palace and she had visited it before. Right now droid attendants were washing the clothes she had left in the wash bin outside the shower room. Normally the service allowed anyone who worked out to leave their sweaty clothes here after exercising and have them washed and in their locker, ready for the next time they came down to the gym. In Mara's case, they were the only clothes she had with her and she was giving the droids plenty of time to clean them.

As far as she knew, Ra'tok was in another shower room in the complex. She had been able to get them both in, once having a membership here and claiming to want to check the facilities after long absence to judge whether she wanted to renew that membership. She had parted company with the Defel, not expecting to see him again. He had gone in one of the many shower rooms the complex offered.

One of the problems with serving a clientele consisting of such varied species is the problem with dividing the changing and shower rooms. The largest clientele was still human, and the obvious men and women's rooms existed, but after that it got a little confusing. Some races had three different genders, while others had none. Ra'tok, for example, walked around without any clothes, as did Chewie. Separate rooms for those races' genders seemed ludicrous. Of course simply having a changing room for a race that didn't wear any clothes to begin with seemed silly. Then you had the problem when members of the same gender but different races didn't feel comfortable showering in the same room as others. The result was so many different changing rooms, that it was very possible to get a room all to yourself even though the building was almost always crowded.

Mara exited the shower stall a full twenty minutes after she had entered it. There were a few other women in the room, but none of them paid her any mind. She toweled off quickly and made use of one of the many hair dryers to dry her long red hair. She was glad to find her clothes cleaned and placed right where she had left them.

Five minutes later Mara was walking back through the main entrance and was more than a little surprised to see Ra'tok standing there patiently. His fur was much cleaner than it had been before, the rustic brown glowing with a pleasant sheen. Mara also noticed that he had obtained a dark visor for his eyes, undoubtedly to reduce the glare from the bright lights he was always complaining about. "This was an excellent choice, Mara. I have not felt this clean since th-"

"What are you still doing here?" Mara asked sharply. She walked toward the exit and was followed by Ra'tok.

"What do you mean? We have escaped together, have we not. I thought we should work together a while longer to make sure the pirates are behind us."

Mara stopped walking, now well outside the health center. "We are hundreds of kilometers away from them on a planet populated by over 750 billion beings. We are quite safe from Ronderj and his gang."

"Any enemy of Ronderj is a friend of Ra'tok, and friends stick together."

Mara looked at him slyly. "More like you have no way off Coruscant and want to get passage with me as to not draw attention to yourself."

Ra'tok bowed mockingly. "I am humbled in the presence of a woman with such vast wisdom."

Mara couldn't help but laugh at his honesty. "Okay, Snotzenexer probably has people around my ship anyway. I might need a little help. Where is it you wanted to go?"

"Where ever people are in need of aid, that is where I go."

Mara nodded. "Right, then you better stick with me. I've got a feeling everyone I know is in need of aid."

The walk to the ship was uneventful, neither party saying anything, both thinking about this odd alliance. Both Mara and Ra'tok had worked independently for the past ten years, relying on no one for anything. When still a ways from the palace ship dock where her ship was parked, Mara pulled up. "Snotzenexer's eyes are probably everywhere. In fact, he probably already has me in his sights. However, on the off chance he doesn't, it would be better if he thought I was alone."

Mara turned to look at Ra'tok, but he was gone. "Understood, Mara," the invisible Defel said. The two of them continued walking and soon reached the entrance to the dock. The entry consisted of a scanner and two posted guards. "Mara?" Ra'tok whispered quietly in her ear. Mara knew what he concerned about. The sensor would definitely pick up the invisible bodyguard, and that would create quite a mess. Mara noticed the entrance wasn't enclosed, and there was open air on the other side of the sensors.

"Have a little faith in me," Mara said, "and don't make a sound." Mara concentrated for a brief moment, and levitated the Defel high up into the air. She could sense some obvious discomfort in her new friend, but he didn't make a noise. Mara kept Ra'tok about six meters above her as she walked through the small entrance, the Defel easily clearing the small angled roof that covered the guard station. The computers beeped an affirmative that Mara was not carrying anything illegal. The sensors had detected so many lightsabers between Luke, Leia, the twins, and Anakin it had been necessary to remove that particular sensor pattern from the list of illegals. Mara thought the fact this was still the case might be the first mistake Snotzenexer had made thus far. Once past the entrance, Mara slowly brought Ra'tok down next to her.

"We will have to have a talk later," the Defel said in a deathly serious whisper.

Mara tried desperately to hide her grin. She could tell from the very uneasy emotions her friend was emitting he didn't often feel terrified, and didn't much enjoy it. The idea that such a warrior as Ra'tok had shown himself to be thus far should be scared of heights humored Mara to no end. Mara ignored the discovery for now and focused on the task at hand, which, though not a difficult one, might explode into action depending on the Republic's new president's disposition.

There was the usual activity going on in the hangars Mara passed. Ships were being loaded and unloaded, the cargo - mostly foods stuff - was being transported from the ships to several freight lifts that would send it down into the bowels of the palace where it would be prepared for the huge population of the palace.

No one paid any attention to Mara as she made her way to the private section of the dock. The government had allowed the former ruling family as much time as they needed to leave Coruscant. Leia had been kicked out of the presidential suite, but the lot for the Falcon was still reserved for her. Mara entered the private hangar and looked at the desolate bay. There were times when this section of the dock would be filled with as many as five ships. Luke's E-wing was often docked here as well as the twin's ship. There was still room on top of that for the Solos' occasional visitors like Lando and herself.

Right now, the only ship in the bay was the Jade's Fire. Mara's senses were at their limits, as she made her way nonchalantly toward her ship. She could sense no other life forms in the area, other than the one right behind her. She was still ten meters from her ship when she noticed the movement off to her right. Mara cursed herself for not picking up the life sign during her earlier scan, but realized why she hadn't when she saw it was a security droid.

The droid had a very nasty looking blaster rifle as a left arm, and it was currently pointed directly at Mara. "Mara Jade, you are under arrest for violating codes 74, 79, and 291, and for infringement upon the Gio Kahn Ordinance. You are asked to put down you weapons and wait for the authorities."

Mara had no idea what the codes or ordinances of which she was in violation were, but then she was pretty sure that the droid probably didn't know either. Mara scanned the bay quickly, looking about for more droids and found that there were at least three different cameras aimed directly at her. She remembered vividly how well Snotzenexer had been able to use security video to incarcerate Luke, so she had to be very cautious here.

"I'm afraid that my infractions are unknown to me," Mara asked as she sensed that Ra'tok was no longer at her side. "If you could expound on how I have broken them I would be very appreciative."

"You are asked to put down your weapons and wait for the authorities authorities authorities wait for the authorities. Put down the authorities. You are asked to put down wait for the wait for the wait fortheweaponsandwaitauthorities." Mara listened as the speech became more muddled and accelerated. The droid began to dance around in circles, its weapon discharging into the walls and ceiling at random.

"I believe the droid is dysfunctional," Mara heard Ra'tok whisper in her ear. "I believe it would be prudent of us to seek shelter and would not be out of line to assume the charges are false."

Mara knew he had played some role in this little incident and was also trying to protect her from the authorities by giving her a valid argument for running. They both dashed for the ship, barely avoiding two shots from the hyperactive droid. The roof above them was not open for their departure, but Mara had a remote opener in her ship that was capable of scanning the frequencies to find the right actuator codes. A couple of seconds later the hangar was opening to the outside and the ship lifted off, filling a room with repulser exhaust just as four security guards ran into the hangar.

Ra'tok was visible again, and sitting in Mara's copilot seat, taking inventory of the ship's controls. Mara was too busy to notice as she was scanning Coruscant's flight control frequencies to see if they were going to be forced into landing. Apparently Snotzenexer didn't want to make it that obvious he was hunting her, or else he didn't want to catch her at all, but merely let her know he was displeased with her, because no one was pursuing her and she had a clear sky to jump into hyperspace.

Ten minutes later they were safely in hyperspace, the starlines zipping by them like speeders at night. Mara turned to Ra'tok, preparing to quiz the strange alien, but noticed he was rather preoccupied with some of the modifications she had done to the ship. He had his clawed hands flying over the buttons and switches of one of her advanced scanners. "Are you transmitting a message to anyone at the moment," he asked, his voice reverting to a growl in this moment of seriousness.

Mara shook her head, not responding vocally to the Defel's back, but figured Ra'tok already knew this. "Why?" she asked.

"Because we are transmitting a low frequency, high bandwidth signal somewhere in the aft of the ship."

"A homing beacon," Mara swore at her clumsiness. "Of course."

"We can remove it."

"Yes of course we can," Mara said, thinking of all the possibilities. The problem with this was that while she could remove it and even stick it on something else, she had to do so in such a way to fool Snotxenexer - not an easy task. "The problem is he already has our heading in hyperspace."

"Where are we going?"

"Yavin IV," she responded, her mind still humming as to what she could do.

"The Jedi Academy," Ra'tok growled thoughtfully, "that would explain a lot."

"He already knows where we are going," Mara said out loud, hoping that vocalizing her thoughts would help her come up with a solution. "Even if we shoot past Yavin and head toward Corellia, as soon as we remove the tracking device, he'll know we simply went toward Corellia to throw him off, Yavin being the much more logical place for us to head."

"Besides," Ra'tok pointed out, "if you remove the device at all, he'll know we know he is tracking us."

"Good point," Mara said, "though, he probably already knows we know, or at least is assuming it."

"Are you sure that is a valid assumption?" Ra'tok asked, his pride a little wounded. "It was not easy to locate amongst the engine interference. He could not assume we would find it."

"Nothing on your technical skills, Ra'tok, but if I looked for it, I would find it. No he is much safer in assuming we know about it. The penalty for assuming we don't when we do is much worse than the opposite. Although, you do point out something important, he hid it on my ship in such away to make us earn its discovery. If he wanted us to find it, he could have placed it in the cargo hold or right in plain view on the underside of the ship."

"This argument seems to go around in circles," Ra'tok said, a little frustrated with the conversation. "If you want assume that he knows we will find it, then it follows to assume he wants us to find it. Therefore the only way to validate its hidden location is that he wanted us to believe he didn't want us to find it, which of course can not be assumed either."

"You're quite right. If he wanted us to find it, yet made it difficult to find, he wanted to keep the fact he knows we know a secret."

"Wouldn't it be much simpler to assume this Snotzenexer you talk of is not nearly as clever as you give him credit for?"

"That would be the worst assumption we could possibly make." Mara dwelt on that for a while. "While we are assuming he is pretty clever, we can't safely say that he doesn't also know that we know he wanted us to find the transmitter."

"Aaarrrrghhhh! Is there no end!" Ra'tok was apparently at the end of his patience. "If we are to assume that he is more clever than us, then we must also assume that we will not be able to unravel his plot without first obtaining more information than he has at his disposal. And since he is the one giving out information, this will never be possible."

Mara listened to this line of reasoning, enjoying the fresh attitude Ra'tok used to attack the problem. Of course they still needed a way to come to some sort of conclusion. They couldn't very well let Snotzenexer track them all over the galaxy, could they? "What do you propose we do then?"

"Since we cannot become smarter than he is, we have to change the flow of information. Right now he is providing all the information. As soon as we land on Yavin IV, we will begin to give to him information. As long as that information is in line with what he expects it to be, we have nothing to fear. He will know what we are doing, but we will also know everything he knows. As long as we control the information, we can control what he thinks. If he is as clever you say, then we can not allow the information to deviate from the expected or he will know we have done something against his will."

"In other words," Mara said, "if we drop out of hyperspace now and destroy the device, he will now we are about to go somewhere where we do not wish to be followed by him, and therefore are probably going to do something that will directly affect him."

"Exactly. He has two courses of thought open to him. He can either assume we are stupid or smart. If we are stupid, we do not find the tracking device, or if we do find it, we destroy it or attach it to something else and assume Snotzenexer is none the wiser. If we are smart, we find the device, but do not detach it immediately, knowing Snotzenexer already knows we are heading to Yavin IV. Like you said before, the penalty for assuming we are dumb, is much greater than otherwise."

"So the longer we act smart, and do nothing drastic to the tracking device," Mara started, testing out this new line of reasoning, "the more we'll convince Snotzenexer his assumptions are correct. We will be doing what he wants us to, yet at the same time controlling the information he has. There is one problem I have with this. If we allow the tracking device to stay on our ship for too long, Snotzenexer will know we are up to something. I mean the most obvious thing to do is to remove the tracking device as soon as we reach Yavin IV. There would be no way for him to know where we are going then."

Ra'tok smiled widely. "Since that is what he expects us to do, that is exactly what we will do. We will take the device off. Snotzenexer will know we have done so after the device remains dormant for far too long."

"Then what is the point?" Mara asked. "If all he wanted to know was where we were going originally, he could have gathered that from our hyperspace jump outside of Coruscant. Your line of reasoning made sense up till now."

"There is something that you and I still don't know, or at least, according to Snotzenexer we do not know it." Mara waited patiently for Ra'tok to continue. "There is another tracking device on this ship."

"What?! Why didn't you say so earlier? Did you detect it with the other one?"

"I have no basis for saying that other than it is the only possible conclusion to this line of reasoning. There is another tracking device on this ship that we will never find unless we tear the ship apart from top to bottom, something you probably would have done had Snotzenexer not attached the other more obvious device. You said yourself Snotzenexer merely wants you to know that he knows where you are, or that he is not going to leave you alone. This device we found is meant to be just that. We are meant to find it and remove it. It is a game. If one side suddenly stops playing, the other side becomes cautious."

"Then how can you be sure that isn't all this device is. Why does there have to be another device?"

"Because like you said before, all we have to do is remove the device once we get to the Academy and he will have no idea where we are. And, of course, the penalties for assuming we have no additional tracking device are much more costly than the opposite way of thinking."

Mara smiled broadly. "All this time, with Thrawn and with Snotzenexer, we have been trying to out think them and failing miserably. What we need to do first is think at the same level first. You are absolutely right. There probably is another tracking device on this ship. In fact there might be several. From now on we have to always assume he knows more than us, because then he won't."

"You learn quickly, Mara."

"Watch it, Ra'tok, don't go assuming the role of the teacher just yet. You're starting to sound like someone else I know."

"Really," Ra'tok barked a laugh, "when do I get to meet him?"

"Soon, I hope."

***

The next morning's breakfast turned out the same way every other one had. Sanson was sitting across from her husband while he was eating and reading at the same time. The conversation, however, started differently. Snotzenexer asked the first question. "Honey, do you know what the market selling price is for a ton of grain?"

"Excuse me," she replied, nearly choking on the oddity of the question.

"How about the pharmaceutical market? Do you know anything about that?"

Sanson didn't reply this time, she just stared across the table at her husband with her fork poised over her plate.

"Next question: Do you know what prolan gas is?"

Now Sanson dropped her fork on her plate, gathered her hands together under her chin with her elbows on the table, and settled in for a long stare until her husband started explaining a few things.

"I just thought that if you knew some of those things then it could save me some research." Snotzenexer shrugged his shoulders in an "oh well" and went back to eating, ignoring his wife's penetrating stare.

"No Alex, it's not that easy anymore. What's going on?"

"Are you ready to make a military move?"

"Don't try and change the subject. What were you just talking about?"

"I'm not changing the subject," Snotzenexer said calmly. "You will make a military strike, allowing me to manipulate the grain market, which in turn will allow me to increase the pharmaceutical market, and finally allow me to create a large amount of prolan gas."

Sanson relaxed slightly, leaning back in her chair. "A military strike?" she said, reflecting on what he had said and realizing this was as much as she was going to get out of him. "I think I can manage that."

Chapter 4 "Veck"

Warin Page looked at his field disconsolately. It was beautiful, really. Rows upon rows of grain, wheat, and corn covered 16 square kilometers of land and contained three times that much in actual crop.

Veck was an interesting planet for many reasons. It was unique in that it was the only habitable planet in the sector with over 30 percent oxygen in its atmosphere. Because of this high oxygen level in the air, organisms under five kilograms could not survive, or at least not flourish. The only small life existed in the vast saltless oceans that covered two fifths of the planet's surface. The largest continent on the planet (there were only three: two in one hemisphere, one in the other) took up over one third of the planet's surface and was divided in half by a huge plateau that ran north and south. Geologists have come to a unanimous decision as to the reason for this. During the ice age of the planet, the relative uniformity of the continent allowed the glaciers to move in from the east and west of the continent unhindered, meeting in the middle and pinching the continent together into a plateau.

The plateau was home to most of the continent's non-sentient life. It wasn't a true plateau because there was a mountainous spine that traversed its center that was several kilometers above sea level, but the majority of the plateau was only three kilometers above sea level. At this elevation, the oxygen content in the air was depleted, making it ideal for most livestock and other larger animals, yet too cold during the winter, early spring, and late fall for the smaller animals.

Numerous rivers came down out of plateau and filtered themselves through the low lands until they emptied into the oceans. Through coordination with the livestock farmers on the plateau, the rivers were filled with nitrates and fertilizer to provide natural irrigation and fertilization for the crops below. The trade off was that the rivers were not fit to drink.

Of course the major selling point of the planet is that of its mineral deposits in the soil. There was no natural salt on the planet. There were instead large amounts of limestone in underground caves that would seep up through the ground. In general, the soil makeup was as perfect as it could be for the prosperity of vegetation.

The end result of all of this was that you had an enormous continent with perfect soil, natural irrigation and fertilization, with no insects, and very little elevation variation. Then, about two hundred years ago, someone invented 3D farming. This development allowed farmers to triple their crop size as well as reduce sun scorching that was a problem on the relatively cloudless planet. There were several rainstorms during the summer months, but otherwise, there were but wisps of clouds in the sky.

The idea of 3D farming was to not only grow crops vertically, but horizontally as well. In Warin Page's field, he had erected three-meter high walls every three meters. The result was cubic channels that ran the length of the field. The channels had to run east to west to ensure that the crops would get the sun they needed in the early growth periods. When the gundark days of summer came, the foliage in the channels was so thick that the plants shaded each other.

The walls were made out of a thin wire mesh encasing one-half to two-thirds of a meter of soil. The thickness of the wall depended on what type of crop was growing there. You had to account for both sides of the wall since the left side of one channel was the right side of the adjacent channel.

Harvesting these channels were done by huge, droid combines. They were equipped with a row of U-shaped vibroblades that fit the inside of the channel, cutting the crop at the root. Large conveyers then brought the cut stalks into the combine and sorted the crop from the stems and leaves.

Over the years the process had been perfected so well that there was very little wasted energy or bad crop. Flooding was rarely a problem because of the channel setup, floodwaters didn't have the opportunity to flow over the whole field, but were confined to one, maybe two channels. Many farmers reinforced their walls with wood or some other biodegradable structural substance.

All of these things were going through Warin's mind as he looked from his elevated house at his expanse of crops, now three-quarters of the way through the growing season. Behind him droids were building three more compressive storage bins to add to his collection of already twenty-two bins. These were hard times for Warin and for the rest of the population of this vast continent of which 99.998% was covered by farms that looked exactly like his. Even with the large coastal cities that provided the rest of the continent with everything that wasn't edible, the average population per square kilometer of the continent was still less than one.

Warin had sixteen square kilometers of cropland and a family of three children and a beautiful young wife. He had inherited the farm from his father and in each of the seven years since he had taken over the farm had seen an increase of at least five percent in crop production. This was over-shadowed by the fact that each year the farm saw a loss of at least fifteen-percent in profits.

The problem was very simple: supply and demand. Warin understood that his farm alone could feed about one tenth of his continent's population. He read yesterday that the latest figures on the surplus went something along the lines of this: the planet of Veck produced two and a half billion times more food each year than they could ever eat in a thousand years. All of the power plants ran off of excess crop. Vehicles could now operate off of grain alcohol. They even developed rockets that could run off ethanol.

There hadn't been a problem 30 years ago when the Empire existed. The Veckorians weren't human, well, not entirely. Their skin was a little too green; their shoulders seemed a little too wide for their thin waists; they were a little too tall for their short legs; and they had a few too many ears, but otherwise they were very much human. The Empire's treatment of aliens is well document and the Veckorians were no different. The Empire controlled vast amounts of territory and had trillions upon trillions of people that needed food, much of whom lived in space, far away from fertile soil.

Veck had produced the most grain for the least cost (not that the Empire ever paid for it), so they were reigned into service as the Empire's main foodstuff planet. When the Empire was removed, the Veckorians found they could now operate for themselves, keeping the profits of their labors. It was motivation like this that led to the vast improvements in farming technique.

Immediately the Veckorians realized they would have to depend on outside help to succeed. They knew the demand was out there. The Veck farmers could produce such large amounts of food at so little cost that any other world could buy twice as much grain as it needed for around half the price it would cost to do it themselves. The only problem was transportation. Veck was not an ore rich planet. They had plenty of iron in the soil from which the crops benefited greatly, but there was no way to extract it without ripping up half of the farms. Because of this they did not have many ships at all, and certainly no large ships required for efficiently shipping food.

Without the Empire to control the trade, different traders jumped at the opportunity to deal grain with Veck, knowing they could buy extremely low and sell high. Because of the extreme profit available, the fight over trading rights turned into exactly that - a fight. One person emerged as the victor, a former Imperial captain named Jorgan Zeth. He turned into a ruthless dictator of the space lanes between Veck and the other worlds. Any unauthorized air traffic into or out of Veck was shot down without any questions asked.

Captain Zeth wasn't satisfied with controlling all the trade with Veck; he wanted to make a killing. He had two markets with which he dealt. He had the surrounding planets, which depended on the grain from Veck, and he had Veck, which depended on selling its grain to the outside planets. With the outside market, Zeth reduced the supply, which obviously increased the demand, thus sending the prices through the roof. With Veck, Zeth decreased his demand coinciding with his decrease in supply to the outside, which increased the supply on the planet, thus sending the price through the basement. Zeth was able to by grain from desperate farmers at mere credits per ton, while he sold it to hungry people for several thousand credits per ton.

Jorgan Zeth quickly became the wealthiest man in the sector and wasted no time in building up his fleet of depleted warships. He had gained control of the food trade on Veck with two Star Destroyers, three Dreadnaughts, and four Escort Carriers. He didn't need to worry about increasing his trade fleet, since he never planned on expanding. Each year his profit margin increased by incredible amounts and if he increased trade he would destroy the perfect balance between supply and demand he had developed. Plus, to increase trade meant he had to grow in size and he wanted to remain local, else he might become vulnerable to attack.

Zeth had been attacked before by the worlds that he was cheating. Zeth had been able to bribe pirates to try and control any other grain trade that came into the sector from other means, and they were mostly successful. There wasn't an excess of foodstuff that could be shipped in. With the fall of the Empire, most of the planets that didn't join the New Republic found they barely had enough food to feed themselves much less feed others. A few financially minded people tried to bring meat or grain into the sector, but they tried it as a business venture and were not prepared for the force applied by Zeth and his pirates.

As far as the people on Veck were concerned, there was nothing they could do. Some people suggested they cut back their production so they could get a better price out of Zeth. The only problem was they were already producing a thousand times more crop than Zeth was using. Which meant if they wanted to make any significant changes, they would have to put 99.9% of the farmers out of work. Even if they did this, there was a large portion of the public that was pretty sure Zeth wouldn't change his prices one bit.

The only thing they could hope for was that Zeth would decide to expand and they would be able to sell just a little bit more of their grain. Warin hoped for this as much, if not more, as anyone else. His wasn't the largest farm on the continent, wasn't even in the top ten percent, but he was one of the few farmers who owned all of his land and equipment. Warin's great-great-great-great-great grandfather had been one of the first farmers to use 3D farming to its full potential. His grandson had been able to buy the very expensive land back from the bank. His grandson had been able to make enough money so he could equip the farm with the newest equipment. His grandson, Warin's father, had miraculously been able to stay out of debt during the Imperial occupation. Now Warin owned his farm with no mortgage hanging over his head.

Because of Warin's financial situation, any sale he made was immediate profit. At the end of this harvest he would have fifteen storage bins of good grain and ten storage bins of corn, each holding a thousand tons. He figured that in a normal market, he could get about two hundred credits for a ton of grain. If he could sell his stores, he'd make five million credits instantly.

Right now, Warin was looking at his crop realizing most of it would have to be burned. Very little was wasted on Veck, but heating homes with grain was very inefficient. He knew he could sell some of it, but he chose not to, letting his share go to his financially strapped neighbor. Since Zeth was only asking for a thousandth of the total crop produced, it was decided by the government of Veck that each farmer should be allowed to sell a thousandth of his crop so no one farmer got the upper-hand. An average crop was about three thousand tons. Warin's was larger than that and his share was around five tons.

Warin's neighbor, Clarq Gynir, walked up beside the young farmer silently, not wanting to disturb the man as he looked at his life laid out before his eyes. Warin had seen him approaching in the morning light a few minutes earlier and heard the faint rustle in the grass as he stopped behind him. "It's beautiful isn't it," he stated, not really asking a question. "The sun picks up the dew drops on the green leaves, and the channels sparkle as if they were filled with gold." Warin sighed deeply, "If only that were the case."

Clarq didn't say anything, having already thanked his friend for his generosity. With Warin's share, Clarq would be able to sell eight tons of grain today. The sad part is he would only get about one hundred sixty credits for it. "You know," Clarq said as the two of them turned from the view to get to work, "the funny part about this whole thing is that we are in a huge depression, but no one is going hungry."

"No one on this planet anyway," Warin said, stealing any irony Clarq had been planning. Warin understood what Clarq was saying. Food was not a problem. Heat during the winter was not a problem. The problem was they were stagnant. The banks realized the problems and had been kind thus far in not reclaiming as many farms as they could have, but people were still digging themselves deep into debt with no hope to climb out.

The two men walked to Warin's equipment shed. The shed was the biggest in an eight hundred-kilometer radius. Warin opened the shed, looked at his all-purpose hauler, and smiled. "Still have those wheels?" Clarq asked rhetorically.

Warin examined the large rubber tires. "They're still the simplest machines in the universe. A little more economical than yours, huh."

Warin had hit a sore spot on Clarq's ego, but a spot that was fast healing, and he smirked back. Clarq had to sell most of his equipment because he couldn't afford the power cells required to run the repulsor hauler technology. Warin's hauler could run on repulsers also, but his father had been smart enough to get a model with a combustion engine for conversion to cheaper fuel. "Runs on ethanol produced right here on the farm," he said.

The two friends climbed up into the elevated cab and road out of the shed, down the road, and up to Clarq's farm. Clarq's oldest son was waiting for them, sitting on top one of the four storage bins the Gynir's owned. He was perched on the peak of the angled roof some seven meters in the air. Warin moved the hauler next to the building and Clarq's son, Filip, attached the filler hose to the port.

Ten minutes later, Warin, Clarq, and, after much begging, Filip were bumping down the road to the nearest space dock. The truck's suspension was poor and designed for when the hauler was fully loaded. This hauler could carry fifty tons, and Warin could tow two more fifty-ton trailers behind it, making this load of only eight tons seem rather pathetic. As they neared the facility, Warin became worried. There were several other haulers waiting around the dock. The facility allowed for the emptying of two hauler bins at once, but the two trucks parked in the stations seemed to be inactive. The other three haulers were simply waiting in line for the Zeth traders to arrive.

"Maybe they're just late, Dad," Filip offered from the back seat, seeing that neither of the adults wanted to say it. Warin looked at Clarq, wanting to let him know what they did was up to him, but Clarq was staring at the empty dock where a large ship should be. The Zeth logo was quite hideous, a contorted image of the captain's face with a stalk of corn and a piece of grain sticking out of either side of his mouth, but Clarq would do anything to see that logo on any type of ship right now.

Zeth had a bad habit of missing some of his appointments with the local farmers. This meant that he simply wasn't collecting anything that day, and anyone who was scheduled to sell on that day missed out. Warin glanced at his chrono. They were due to dump their load in about fifteen minutes. Warin had some minor connections with the local government who negotiated policy with the evil trader and knew what kind of schedules he arranged. Zeth usually scheduled eight to ten farmers a day at fifteen-minute intervals. There were five other haulers waiting ahead of them, and they were fifteen minutes early, which meant that Zeth was at least an hour late, though he usually arrived at least an hour early to make sure everything at the dock was operating correctly.

Warin didn't get directly in line, not wanting to box in the people ahead of him. Warin flipped off the engine and swung down from his cab. He walked toward the congregation of men, all of whom had left their vehicles to complain about Captain Zeth. The men stopped their conversation when they saw Warin coming and acknowledged his presence with a wave or a tip of the hat. The young man was well liked, mostly because of his helpful nature during this time of hardship.

"Any of that yours?" one of the men asked, gesturing to Warin's hauler. They all watched as Clarq helped his son down from the high cab. Any of the men who might not have known about Warin's generosity, understood when they saw Clarq and his son.

"Does it matter?" Warin responded, beckoning in turn to the empty space dock.

"Ah, send it all to blazes, I say," another man spat, "probably get a better price for it, anyway."

"Not far from the truth," someone else spoke up, "Trib Kornnet was telling me that he sold his share a week ago for eighteen."

"A ton?" one of the younger men asked.

"No, a kilogram," a farmer slapped the former speaker," yes, a ton."

"There was a time," the oldest man there said, "when you could get two hundred fifty credits for a ton of old grain."

"Do you think he'll show up," Filip asked innocently when they approached.

The five men who had been standing there slowly shook their heads. Warin was told three farmers had already left before he arrived. There was silence for a while, until one man finally broke it. "Well, I'll be seeing you fellas around." With that, he left the huddle, got into his hauler, and left. The exit was slow at first, but the last two men left together, leaving Warin, Clarq, and Filip standing there alone.

"Do you want me to move my hauler into the unloading station, or . ." he didn't want to have to finish his thought.

"If you don't mind," Clarq responded, "I have nothing better to do today. I can give him another hour if he needs it."

The gesture was almost funny. Here they were going out of their way to accommodate someone who was going out of his way to oppress them. They waited an hour but Zeth or any of his cohorts didn't show up. Warin was about to ask if Clarq needed a loan when Filip pointed to the sky. "Look!"

They both did and nearly fainted with relief at the sight of a heavy transport coming down through the atmosphere. It didn't take Warin long to realize something was wrong. "That ship is at least twice as big as the normal ship they bring." Warin squinted into the rising sun at the side of the huge ship. "The Zeth insignia is missing too."

Neither farmer could think of anything to say as the ship settled to the ground. The ship was indeed much larger than the normal fifty-ton ship that came. Warin guessed that this ship could carry at least one hundred fifty if not two hundred tons. The pillions stretched out to the landing pad and relaxed into their supports as hydraulic gas was exhaled under the weight of the empty cargo ship. Soon the engines were turned off and the ship was stably resting on the pad.

The next few seconds passed excruciatingly slow before the hatch on the underside of the ship opened and extended to the ground. Both Warin and Clarq watched in amazement as a woman descended the ramp. They couldn't remember Zeth employing any women. Well, the man had lots of women, but they didn't fly freight, and they certainly weren't as old as this woman was. She wasn't ancient, maybe early to mid forties, but she kept her age well. She was thin and athletic with dark hair that simply refused to go gray. She was wearing a military outfit with several decorations and a rank of admiral.

Clarq finally spoke. "I have two shares to sell totaling eight tons," he almost whispered.

"Speak up," the woman barked.

"Uh, I have eight tons."

"Eight tons!" she screamed, causing the two men to back down considerably. "I'm looking to fill my ship. That's two hundred twenty-five tons. So unless you have twenty-eight more haulers filled with eight tons, I'm not interested."

"But I have two shares," he tried again, offering the two vouchers he was carrying at arm length.

The woman took a few steps forward and snatched them from his hand. She looked at them briefly, trying not to show her disgust. "These are vouchers given by your government to sell your crop to Zeth Trading Company."

Clarq nodded.

"I'm not part of Zeth Trading Company."

Clarq frowned.

"I don't care about vouchers, I don't care about shares, and I don't care about eight tons. All I care about is filling my ship with two hundred twenty-five tons of grain. I have enough credits on hand to pay you two hundred per ton, but only if you can get it to me in the next hour."

"T-t-two h-hundred per t-ton?!" Clarq asked.

"Who are you?" Warin asked before the woman could make a retort at Clarq.

"I'm Admiral Sanson of the Republic Navy, and the next person that asks me a question that isn't "Where do I put my grain" or "Where do I sign" isn't going to sell any grain today.

Warin and Clarq didn't need any more help, and twenty minutes later they were pulling up to the unloading station with Warin's hauler pulling two trailers loaded down with one hundred fifty tons of Clarq's grain. Clarq had said they should be selling at least some of Warin's crop, but Warin would here none of it. "I have a feeling this won't be our last chance to sell at these prices and quantities. Plus, two hundred and twenty-five tons would hardly put a dent in my storage bins."

After unloading, they hurried back for another hundred twenty-five tons. Sanson was still there when they returned. As Clarq and his son were just finishing emptying the last of the trailers, Warin tried to engage the admiral in some type of conversation. "So what happened to Zeth? The last trading ship that came in here that wasn't affiliated with him got shot down and the farmer with whom he traded got his fields burned."

"I think Zeth is putting out some fires of his own right now," Sanson replied. "Have you been keeping up to date with the news reels?" Warin shook his head. "Well the Republic has just undergone a leadership change and we are looking to bring the entire galaxy together or at least stabilize the ruling bodies. Zeth's little operation out here was one of the first hot spots on the list we had targeted. He won't bother you anymore."

They both watched Clarq and his son reset the unloading station for a new hauler as Sanson continued. "If you can't make it to the capitol city tonight, you might want to watch your holo-vid. The president of the Republic will be giving a speech tonight explaining his plan for revitalizing this planet's economy and bringing an end to galactic hunger. I think you guys are going to do pretty well in the years to come. I think he plans to set a price of at least two hundred fifty a ton for grain and three hundred for corn until you guys get back on your feet."

"What kind of tonnage export are you looking at a year?"

"As much as you can give us," Sanson replied, but then looked at the vast fields that surrounded the dock, "or at least as much as we can carry away. Two fifty to three hundred per ton is pretty expensive for traders right now so it will help them to operate in large amounts to increase profit. I figure we'd probably be able to get at least ten ships a day like mine to this dock alone. You figure you got hundreds of docks like this all over the place. We could be pulling out quite a load each day."

Warin was smiling from ear to ear as he drove back to his farm and started to take the wheels off his hauler. He had a few power packs saved for special occasions and with the work his hauler would be given in the next few months, he didn't want to have to depend on wheels.

As he was changing his machine over, he kept wondering what it must have been like to see Zeth's fleet of pirate ships destroyed by the Republic fleet.

Two hours earlier

"What is it?!" Jorgan Zeth screamed at his sensor officer. He was just prepping his cargo ship for its daily commute down to the surface of Veck to pick up another fifty tons from a group of desperate farmers. He was already late with different glitches popping up on the old ship when the call came in from the bridge. He was thinking about calling today's run off as it was, and now, if this problem with the bridge took up too much of his time, he would definitely call the run off.

"Sir," the young man said over the old com system, "there's a group of five ships approaching in hyperspace. It looks as if they'll drop out around the Forgan Cluster."

"Can you give me their make-up?" Zeth responded, his mood improving. Not only did this mean he wouldn't have to make the bothersome run down to the planet, but now he'd get to blow up some ships too.

"There seems to be four relatively small ships and one large one. It appears to be about the size of Corvette sir. The other's are no more than freighters or carriers."

A small fleet, Zeth thought, if you could even call it such. His collection of ships had grown greatly since he had first stared out. He now had two Victory class Star Destroyers, four Dreadnoughts, two Corellian Corvettes, and a collection of smaller ships owned by hired mercenaries. He had a very small region to protect with his fleet so he often just threw the entire thing at any intruder no matter how small. It was likely that one Star Destroyer could handle this quintet of ships.

"Radio the rest of the fleet," Zeth ordered the bridge as he worked his way to his command post, "tell them to meet at the Forgan Cluster in two minutes. The Forgan Cluster was the result of two moons colliding over the planet Forgan. Forgan did not have a very strong gravitational pull and the debris stayed in orbit around the planet. The planet had been just slightly larger than either of the two moons, but it had no life of its own.

The hyperspace jump to the cluster took only a minute, and the rest of the fleet was there to watch the five much smaller ships jump out of hyperspace. The sensor officer had been correct in guessing the identity of the largest ship as a Corvette. There were also two cargo ships and two fighter carriers. The way Zeth's fleet was positioned, they had the backdrop of the Forgan sun right behind them, giving his fleet an impressive silhouette.

"Sir," the communications officer spoke up, "they are trying to contact us."

"Of course they are," Zeth replied. "Put it on speaker."

"Unknown fleet, this is Commander Tabien of the Republic. We are on our way to the planet Veck to pick up a shipment of food. We request safe passage."

"Under who's authority?" Zeth asked as he motioned to his weapons officer to power up the laser batteries.

"Authority? I was under the impression this sector was part of the free trade agreement between the Republic and the defeated Empire."

"Free trade?" Zeth responded, trying to make to words sound like cursing. "I don't remember signing anything. I control all the trade that goes on in this sector. You are trespassing, and I suggest you leave at once."

"Perhaps we could negotiate some type of trade agreement-"

Zeth motioned with his finger and the Star Destroyer unleashed its firepower on the prone Corvette. The Star Destroyer gunners had had the better part of a minute to train their sights on the motionless ship and twenty banks of turbo lasers struck home on the ships midsection. The ship shook violently as it convulsed internally and then exploded outwardly in a ball of flame that was quickly extinguished by the vacuum of space.

Not three seconds later, ten large capitol ships jumped in behind Zeth's fleet. "Sir!" the officer screamed. "There are five Calamarian Cruisers, four Imperial class Star Destroyers, and a Super Star Destroyer."

"What?! Where did they come from?!"

"They must have jumped in from behind the sun. Our sensors couldn't pick them up sir."

"It was a trap."

Zeth didn't even bother to check which officer said this last, blatantly obvious comment. He just drew his side arm, turned, and fired. The man took the shot full in the chest.

The communications officer spoke up, unfazed, as if this random execution was common place. "Sir, they want us to surrender."

"Fat chance of that happening, don't you think?" Zeth replied

"But sir, they have us severely out-gu-"

Another blaster shot - another dead officer on the deck. Unfortunately, it was the weapons officer. It didn't really matter though, because as soon as the fleet didn't unanimously surrender, the Republic fleet opened fire.

Sanson was looking at the scene from her command post on her Super Star Destroyer the Dark Fist. She was surprised, really, that the Republic had allowed her ship to keep its name. She was more surprised, however, that the Republic had beaten the Empire after she had seen what kind of hoops they had to jump through just to blow up some ships.

Here was Jorgan Zeth, one of the biggest pieces of space dung still left in the galaxy, and the Republic still couldn't justify removing him from power until he made a move against the Republic. Sanson had had to use droid-controlled ships to lure the former Imperial captain into firing on non-hostile targets. Then, even after he had blown up the Corvette, they still had to offer him the choice of surrendering before they could toast his hide.

The lost Corvette had been completely droid controlled with a voice recording from a fake Commander Tabien. It was an old ship, as were the other four, but Sanson was glad that neither of the cargo ships had been destroyed. She wanted to take a trip down to the surface of Veck before her husband arrived later that night.

"Is there anything left?" Sanson asked after only a few minutes of battle.

"There seems to be a Star Destroyer that might make it and many of the smaller mercenary ships are scrambling, but everything else is pretty much a loss."

"Is the Star Destroyer Zeth's?"

"I don't think so."

That's a shame, Sanson thought.

***

The city of Veckory was the capitol city on the large western continent that housed the huge farming complexes. The city square was really more of a rectangle, but no one seemed to notice. There was a medium sized amphitheater at one end of the square. The square was one hundred fifty meters across with four lane roads on either side of it and a large fountain in the middle. It stretched back from the amphitheater almost four hundred meters, ending in a city park with plenty of trees and some nice streams. Bordering the four lane roads, and continuing for the next few kilometers were huge skyscrapers, boxing the square in nicely. Right now it was filled with more people than was previously thought actually lived on the continent.

Alex Snotzenexer, former Admiral in the Imperial Navy, former President of the Varion Imperial Bank, and current President of the Republic strode to the microphone in the center of the amphitheater. He spent a couple minutes behind the podium, making the billions of people both in attendance and watching the broadcast wait in silence as he composed his thoughts. He heard there were some speakers that would just stand in front of the silent audience for an hour without saying anything, making a huge impression on the crowd before presenting their speech. Snotzenexer didn't plan on doing that. He had never been a terrific speaker. It wasn't how he spoke, it was what he said that made the crowds flock to hear him.

Everyone who was anyone knew why the President was here, or at least knew what had happened at the Forgan Cluster earlier that day. They knew the long suffering under Zeth was over, they just weren't exactly sure what it was going to be replaced with. Everyone who had the opportunity did research on Snotzenexer and was pleased with what they found. Every where the president went he spread wealth and prosperity. If ever there was a place that needed wealth and prosperity, it was Veck.

Snotzenexer cleared his throat to make sure everyone was listening and to make sure the sound system wouldn't go shrill on him. "People of the planet of Veck, most importantly, farmers of Veck, I have some very good news for you tonight. Starting tomorrow, there will be ships coming from every corner of the galaxy wanting to by grain and corn from you. They will not haul one one-thousandth of your crop, but will take as much as they can carry. They will not buy it from you at twenty credits a ton, but at no less than two hundred fifty credits per ton."

Snotzenexer had planned to pause here for applause that he was willing to wait fifteen minutes for, but none came. Either this society didn't clap, or they were far too shocked to do anything but listen. "Zeth and his pirates attacked Republic ships today and have been dealt with. They will never bother you again. There are many planets in the Republic recovering from wars or undergoing droughts or famines. They need food and you will be their saviors."

Snotzenexer moved aside slightly and motioned to a tall Twi'lek standing behind him. "This is my head of trade operations, Cog Fardin." Snotzenexer paused in thought wondering how his plans might have changed had Mara Jade accepted that job when he had offered it to her. "He is going to work out an arrangement with your government to regulate the selling during the initial few weeks of renewed business so there isn't mass confusion. After the initial flux is slowed, you will be able to work out the details with the actual traders."

Snotzenexer was amazed how quiet the huge crowd was remaining. "You might look at me as a savior - a hero to be worshipped, but I tell you I am no different than anyone else. It is you who should be commended. You have stood fast through the tough times of Zeth and the Empire. Now your suffering is at an end. If you still insist on thanking me, you need only to allow this planet to do what it was intended to do from the beginning of time: feed the rest of the galaxy!"

Snotzenexer raised his arms and stood back from the podium, signaling the end of his speech. What happened next wasn't as much applause as it was a level seven ground quake. The throng of people erupted into a kind of raucous cheer that Snotzenexer had never experienced before. Behind the president, Cog Fardin, the trade advisor, said that he thought it went well, though Snotzenexer could not hear one word of it.

The celebration of noise lasted long after Snotzenexer had left the stage of the amphitheater, and even as his shuttle lifted away from the planet an hour later, he could still hear the noise. The shuttle landed in the bay of the Dark Fist, and once Sanson heard the report her husband was safely aboard, she gave the order to return to Coruscant.

Chapter 5 "Pulled out of the Pit"

The drink sat mostly untouched, slowly bubbling away the carbonation. It wasn't that the patron didn't care for the alcoholic beverage that sat undisturbed before him. On the contrary, it was still full because seven similar glasses sat empty next to it. Next to those glasses sat a trophy. The trophy was about half a meter high; a wood base with four wooden posts connected to another wooden base. Each post was a spiral, trimmed with gold and highly reflective. On top of the second base was a golden fighter poised at two angles, as if it were about to enter a banking climb. The fighter wasn't solid gold, but merely leafed. Still, the craftsmanship on the trophy was excellent and probably cost the tournament officials several hundred credits.

"It's a piece of crap," the man sitting in front of the glasses said, spit flying off the last "P." "It isn't even worth one of these," he said, finally hoisting the last glass, still containing liquid. He brought it slowly toward his mouth, or more appropriately, his face. The man was in an odd position: either try to drink through his eye, or put the glass down and try again when his arm was a little more sober.

The bartender decided this might be a good time to start cleaning up the spent glasses. This man had obviously competed in one contest today, and the bartender didn't want him to think the accumulation of empty glasses was another. He'd seen men involved in those types of games before, and there was never a winner.

"The prize money was good," the drinker slurred. The bartender could attest to this, as he had cashed the prize voucher for him two hours ago. "But this," he made a grab for one of the four wooden posts and would have knocked the trophy off the bar had it not been for the dexterous bartender, "this," he decided to point, "this is worthless."

After two recent failures, the man steadied himself and reached for the full glass again. He got it, and most of the liquid found its way into his mouth. The drink had a head and most of it was now dripping down his cheeks and on to his shirt, but he smiled has if he had just accomplished an astounding feet.

There was a man sitting on the bar stool beside him who hadn't been there when he had started his most resent endeavor with the glass. Instead of being startled by this he merely launched into a one-sided discussion with his new neighbor, relieving the bartender from his listening post and allowing him to tend to other patrons.

"She didn't like it," the drunk said, beginning the conversation as if he had been talking to the stranger all night. "You'd think she would be all like, 'Oh, Victor, you won, oooh ooh.' You know how women are. But NO! She was like, 'You never notice me, and I'm leaving.' Piff, women."

"Are yo-"

"So then I was like, 'Fine! I don't need you. Go!' And that was that."

"Are y-"

"But then I was thinking that maybe I do need her, but she was already gone, and all I had was this trophy and some prize money. But it was good prize money," he raised his voice for this last comment, looking around for the bartender for confirmation, "huh?" but he couldn't find him. Victor reached for his glass, but knocked it off the bar. The crash of glass startled him a little and he tried desperately not to act like a drunk trying to act sober. His hands suddenly seemed like they were extra appendages that were only in the way. He tried to find some place to hide them but settled for simply placing them in his lap. He was now just staring at his conversation companion as if it were odd for one to not talk at all.

The stranger waited a while to see if the pause in speech was genuine, not wanting to get shut down again. "Are you Victor Porcelian?"

"Read the plaque on the tro-" he reached for the trophy, but without the bartender there to aid him, it wound up on the floor next to the glass and out of sight. Suddenly Victor's hands seemed extra again without a prop to point at. He played with them nervously in front of him while gesturing over the bar at the unseen trophy. "My name's, well, it's on, it's on the trophy."

"I understand. So your name is Victor Porcelian?"

"Yeah, like I said, it's written on the-" he pointed again, half hoping the trophy had reappeared and half hoping his new friend would just remember what it had looked like, "my name's on the trophy," he finished in a whisper, as if it was a very important secret.

"My names Ward Leonce. I'm a fighter pilot in the Republic and we are looking for new recruits."

"I can fly!" he said this as if it were the antithesis of what he had just said before. If the fact his name was on the trophy was a secret, then the fact he could fly should become the most public thing in the bar.

"You won the Ithorian Ultimate Fighter Invitational today, didn't you?" It was a stupid question, and Ward was sorry he had asked it the moment the words left his mouth.

"Yes I did. In fact I have a -" he turned and was actually surprised to see that the trophy wasn't there. "I'll get it."

Before Ward could stop him, Victor leaped from his barstool in an attempt to jump over the bar. It was quite an impressive display for one as inebriated as he was. He landed hard on his stomach, his arms flailing over the backside of the counter, and his legs nearly sticking straight up in the air.

Ward knew what was going to happen even before he heard Victor groan. It was a vicious shot to take in the gut after so much alcohol, and now that he was inverted, only bad things could happen with his stomach contents. Ward pulled him halfway back over the bar and steadied him as his body went through the retching.

Ten minutes later found Ward nearly carrying a semi conscious Victor. Victor was dragging a trophy behind him that was still a little damp, while Ward was dragging the next hope for the Imperial navy, also still a little damp. Both were out fifty credits: Victor on his bar tab and Ward from his generous tip to whoever was going to clean up the mess.

***

Victor woke up seven hours later, a few trillion kilometers away from his last place of consciousness. It felt like he had left some major body parts behind. "Ooohaaahh," he groaned quite pathetically.

"Good morning to you too," Ward said from the cockpit of the shuttlecraft. "You'll find a pot of stimsuline on a burner down the hall and to your right. You'll find a refresher down the same hall, but on your left. I suggest you use them both, but not in the order I mentioned them."

Twenty minutes later Victor Porcelian came into the cockpit cradling a steaming mug of stimsuline in his hands. "Where am I and who are you?"

"My name is Ward Leonce. I am a fighter pilot in the Republic. We are presently passing by the Cobern system."

"Nice waterfalls on Cobern."

"Only the best," Ward rejoined, glad he was taking the kidnapping well. If Ward guessed correctly, the fact he was a pilot in the Republic more than a little peaked Victor's interest. "We're headed to Coruscant to meet with Admiral Sanson. Well not actually to the planet, she's waiting in a ship in orbit. Again, she isn't actually there waiting for us right now, but she should be back from her military operation by the time we get there."

"We got another twelve hours, don't we?" Victor asked, taking a big sip of his morning drink.

"You know your star charts well. Actually we have another fourteen. This ship isn't as fast as it should be. The extra time should give us a good opportunity to really get to know each other. We kind of had a bad first encounter last night."

***

Han paused briefly, testing the limits of his captors' tempers. He leaned casually against his shovel (or what constituted as a shovel), pretending to pry a rock loose from the muddy ground. The former smuggler wiped the sweat from his forehead with shirtsleeve. He had long ago given up trying to find a clean spot on the shirt for the repeated activity and now merely used the most accessible piece of the material.

"What is it break time already," Lando said under his breath. "We just had one eight hours ago."

Han failed to chuckle at the sarcastic comment, but did catch his friend's gist and resumed his monotonous work. The two men along with several other slaves were busy digging out a huge pit under the vast expanse of Coruscant. The immense weight of the city seemed to press down on Han and Lando as if they were actually part of the support structure in the hideous underworld.

Han's shovel was a slightly concave panel off an incredibly old land speeder with a metal pole lashed crudely onto it for a handle. The contraption was severely over balanced, with the handle weighing at least three times as much as the shovel. It was an amazing feat of coordination and prowess that had allowed Han to fill the wheelbarrow next to him time and time again without repeatedly spilling the contents back on the ground during the transfer.

Finding his wheelbarrow full again, Han put down his shovel and moved to haul the dirt out of the pit. The slaves had dug a dirt ramp out of the pit, which rose right in between two of the three guard posts. Han eyed the two hunchbacked under-dwellers as he always did, looking for some way to escape their ever-present watch. One of the men Han found particularly annoying. The guard had managed to get Han's blaster after he and Lando had been captured over a week ago. The small man seemed to polish the rare weapon as a proud athlete would his first medal. The potential humor in the action of a clueless man scrubbing day and night with a filthy rag on a weapon that had lost its shine twenty years ago, never seemed to dawn on Han.

A short walk from the ramp was the pile of dirt that had been excavated thus far, and Han quickly dumped his load before returning to the pit. "Hey don't you think we've had enough for today?" Han asked the gun polisher.

The monster hardly looked up from his work, just nodded vaguely up toward the surface of the world. "Eeet eees morning. Day jooust beginning. Geeet to woork."

Han looked around at the ever-present gloom that hung in the air. There was little light at all, but the creatures down here seemed to have developed some kind of infrared vision. For Han, Lando, and the other slaves, who hadn't yet adapted to the darkness, torches were lit about the work site. Han was surprised, that with the awful odor in the air, torches could even be lit without blowing out the entire underworld.

"Six point seven two five," Lando said as Han came back next to his friend with an empty wheelbarrow.

"Sounds a bit closer," Han replied. "Don't forget to include the pit." Han sighed heavily as he once again picked up his shovel. He had witnessed the death of two slaves about six days ago who had been beaten to death for not working. Han knew the beating had nothing to do with the work of the two slaves, but had been done for other reasons. Captured slaves from the upper levels of Coruscant could only last so long in these conditions, and soon the quality of their work would not be worth the gruel they were being fed. So the slaves were killed to not only save food, but to teach any new recruits there was a severe hand of punishment at work here.

Still all Han could think about was escape. They had come down here to try and get computer records of all of the Emperor's financial holdings to secure the Republic's own assets, but now Han had convinced himself the task would be pointless. When they had left on this mission, the troubles surrounding Leia and the Republic were coming to a head, and now in over a week's time, they were sure to have been resolved or at least addressed.

"Six point seven two eight," Lando spoke up, breaking Han's train of thought.

"Eight? This pit isn't three meters deep yet."

"No, but I think I missed a really short level about two levels up. No, wait, maybe it was three levels up."

"Keep working on it, Lando."

At least Lando had been able to keep his mind busy thinking of things other than mud and sweat. He was trying to calculate down to the meter, how many kilometers down they were from the docking bay where the Lady Luck was sitting. Han shrugged his shoulders at what his friend found amusing. He guessed the former gambler's card counting ability revealed a mathematical mind behind the handsome face.

"Do you hear that?" Lando said out loud, drawing Han's attention to the volume of his friend's voice rather than to the content of his words. Han was just about to say something about the guards with the guns, when Lando spoke again. "Look."

Han raised his eyes to the guards surrounding the pit. All of them were looking around in a very worried fashion, as if expecting something to come out and bite them. Their hearing had been honed to a superior level living in this dark, silent world and they heard the commotion long before Lando had.

Now Han knew something was up, he too quieted his thoughts and listened. Off in the distance he could hear what sounded like yelling and screaming. There were faint blaster shots, several small explosions, and then a very recognizable sound.

"A lightsaber?" Han asked, wondering if Lando had heard the same thing.

"Trince?" Lando asked, confirming he had heard the sound too.

"Don't forget," Han pointed out, "these under-dwellers took Trince's lightsaber, so unless Luke or one of my kids has come down to rescue us, I think it's just the lightsaber thief trying to ward off what's ever out there."

They both fell silent and then heard another snap-hiss.

"Another lightsaber?" Lando asked, now getting confused.

"They make the lightsabers so they turn off when they're dropped," Han said. "Most likely the lightsaber wielding under-dweller tried to block laser fire, failed, and one of his buddies picked up the fallen weapon."

"If the weapons turn off when you let go," Lando started to ask, "how do they throw them?"

"Jacen told me it takes extra concentration to keep the weapon active while you throw it."

The fighting was very close now and Han, who had been around a lot more lightsaber fights than Lando, recognized the distinct sound of redirected fire. "It does sound like a Jedi out there," Han said, "though I can hardly believe it if it's Trince. He looked dead for sure, when we left him."

"Besides," Lando added, "where would he have been for the past week?"

The sounds of fighting (and dying) were very close now, and the chamber the slaves were in began to light up with the lightsaber and blaster show going on a few meters away. Suddenly a figure wielding a lightsaber jumped into the pit and began swinging wildly at the slaves.

Lando and Han couldn't make out who it was in the darkness as the lightsaber's sudden brightness had blinded them. Whoever it was was making mincemeat of anything in his path. He was effectively throwing blaster fire back at the guards firing down on him while chopping up the scrambling slaves all around him.

Han and Lando both began screaming at once, trying to get the animated Jedi's attention. The dark figure weaving the deadly blade slowed briefly as he approached Han and Lando. In the glow of the blade, Han's eyes could make out the face of the death machine. "Trince?"

The voice seemed to strike a cord in the desperate young man, and he looked at both Lando and Han as if trying to recall the names of classmates at a ten-year reunion. "Han Solo," he began slowly, "Lando Calarissian."

"Yeah, buddy," Han said, seeing the strain and fear in the eyes of his friend. "Calm down. There all dead."

Trince was panting heavily. It wasn't the breathing of a man out of breath, Han thought, but more like a man who is exhilarated or at the peak of ecstasy. Trince looked around. Everything was still and quiet. There was nothing left of the enemy, only three men in the bottom of the pit.

"What were you doing?" Lando yelled. "You just killed innocent pe-" but Han put his hand on Lando's shoulder, stopping the comment. Han could see there was something terribly wrong with the young Jedi.

Trince turned violently toward Lando, and for a moment, Han thought he would strike down the gambler. Instead he spoke. "We need to go. There will be reinforcements." With a wave of his hand, two blasters from fallen guards came flying towards them. Han caught his own blaster, while Lando caught some other relic the slavers had captured.

Han and Lando ran for the ramp leading out of the pit, while Trince simply leaped out of the two-meter deep hole. They ran quickly out of the compound and made their way to the nearest path up. Several other under-dwellers showed their faces, but Trince cut down anyone that tried to stand in their path.

The trip was fast and furious, both Han and Lando were already exhausted for the work they had been doing in the pit, but neither dared complain as Trince didn't seem in the mood to debate the situation.

The trio found they had moved into the more heavily populated levels much faster than they would have thought possible. There were vagrants and homeless that scattered as Trince waived his lightsaber at them. Han wasn't so sure about their friend's temperament now. He was a little worried that if any honest citizen would approach them, asking them to donate to the needy or something, Trince strike them down without thought. It was this concern that finally forced Han to request a break.

The three escapees were still a ways from the surface, but they were further from the bottom, and once they stopped, neither Han nor Lando could get going again without a long rest. Trince said he'd watch out for them while they slept. As Han drifted quickly asleep, he saw the Jedi standing over them as they slept in a deserted building. The old smuggler had terrible dreams about what the man must have gone through.

***

Mara brought down her ship in a small clearing with a permacrete landing pad. There were no Jedi to aid her flight down and was surprised when there was only Threepio there to great her. "Good morning, Mistress Mara," the droid said in his never tiring voice. "I don't believe I am aquatinted with your companion."

Before Ra'tok could introduce himself, Mara spoke up. "Where's Leia or the students?"

"I believe Mistress Leia is in one of the newly built dormitories. She has not left her room since she arrived here six days ago. I do not understand the ways of the Force, but her grief is related to it in some way. Masters Streen and Tionne have not been able to help her. From their conversations I gather it has something to do with Master Jacen. I believe they think he has died."

Mara was shocked. She had liked the twins. They had the same spunk that had characterized Han's career. She had felt certain they were exactly what the Galaxy needed to balance out Luke's dry, serious persona. If Jacen had died, it would be a crushing blow to their side. Attempts had been made on the twins' lives repeatedly over their lives. If Snotzenexer, if he was responsible, had finally been able to get through to one of them, they were in more trouble than they realized.

Mara led Ra'tok toward the newer buildings, noticing Leia's mood must be affecting more than just herself. The remaining students (and it seemed there were very few) were busy rebuilding what Snotzenexer had torn down, but they were doing so without much enthusiasm, as if it were simply a pointless cause.

Mara thought about it during the short walk and could sympathize with them. The universe seemed to be rejecting them. Luke had been exiled, and no one had spoken on his behalf. Jacen might be dead, and he had been the star pupil to emerge from the Academy. Now they were constructing their buildings without any help from the outside. The same outside they were supposed to protect and the same outside that was apparently rejecting them. On top of that, Mara had only been here for a couple minutes and already she could feel Leia's depression through the Force.

The new buildings were equipped with turbolifts, and Mara needed no direction from Threepio, being able to feel Leia's presence quite well. Mara did allow the protocol droid the dignity of leading the procession down the hall to her room, keeping Ra'tok in tow. The door opened and the action inside exploded. Before Threepio even had a chance to speak, much less introduce anyone, Chewbacca sprung at the open door.

Mara figured the Wookiee's temperament would be a little stressed because of Leia's condition and his inability to do anything about it, but she hadn't figured it would cause him to attack anyone who visited unexpectedly. Mara managed to duck inside the room as Chewie flew past her into the hallway. It was then that she remembered Ra'tok.

Mara quickly ran back to the doorway and saw the two aliens facing off in the hallway. She shouted both their names, but they ignored her. She wondered if she had just brought together two mortal enemies. Ra'tok had told Mara of himself, and from what she could gleam from her ship's computer, the Defel were as much legend as anything. That they and Wookiees, a very well known race, could be enemies seemed highly unlikely.

The two of them charged each other, and Mara was left guessing who would come out on top. Chewie was by far the stronger of the two, but Ra'tok had a definite speed advantage and had claws that could do much more damage than the Wookiee was capable of. They locked arms, Chewie almost a half meter taller than his opponent. The awkward embrace lasted for a scary couple of moments before both fighters took a sudden pause. Mara thought it looked like they smelled each other, and then they were suddenly hugging each other.

Mara threw her hands up in the air in confusion. She thought she heard Ra'tok talking in Wookiee, but with as much noise as the two of them were making, Mara could hardly tell. "A simple misunderstanding," Ra'tok said, turning briefly to look at Mara.

It was obvious to Mara the two copilots were becoming fast friends and were no longer going to kill each other. She instead turned her attention back to the room where Leia, despite the activity from Chewie, hadn't moved from her chair. She was looking up at Mara, not so self involved with her misery to disregard the obvious visitor, but Mara could see she wanted nothing else but to simply curl up in a hole and shut the whole world out.

Leia had a blanket over her shoulders, warding off what cold on the hot jungle moon, Mara did not know. In her lap was what she had been doing right before Mara had entered. It appeared to be some kind hat or stocking that Leia was knitting. Mara tried not to let her disgust at the choice of activity show. It was most likely a baby body stocking, used to keep infants warm. It was the type of activity that an expectant mother or a helpful grandmother would take upon themselves.

"It's a body stocking," Leia said to Mara. Not a "hello," or a "how are you doing," but a mundane statement of the totally obvious.

"It's nice," Mara lied boldly. There were so many missed stitches and doubled threads that Mara doubted it would be completed, much less actually support a baby.

"I never got to make one for the twins," Leia said, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "I was just so busy, you see, with the Empire and such. Now-" she broke off and Mara walked over to her. Leia lifted a hand up, staring down at her lap. She sniffed everything up into her head, "I'm okay, I'll be all right."

"No, Leia, you're not okay," Mara said it blatantly, not lying anymore. "It is okay to grieve, but you still need to live your life. You can't let his death kill you too."

"But what do I have to live for now!" the calm act had been thrown aside. "I have nothing! No children! No husband! No brother! No parents! Not even a planet! It's all been taken away from me."

"You have to keep going," Mara said, pulling up a chair so she sat facing Leia a meter away. "It's been tough before, but you made it through. Everything isn't gone, it's just lost and we need to find it back."

"That's easy for you to say!" Leia spat back. "What have you lost? You've never gotten yourself close to anything. You're too scared to get hurt, what can you possibly know about what I'm going through!"

Mara knew it wasn't Leia talking, but all her penned up rage. Mara couldn't let herself get mad or defensive. She needed to keep herself calm, sending as much soothing feelings through the Force as she could. "Leia." Mara reached over and lifted her pouting head from her chest. "Look at me Leia. This isn't about me. It's about you. You need to keep going. It has to be tough, and you're right, I don't know what you're going through, but that doesn't mean I can't help if you let me. You have to let me."

"But," Leia choked, sliding out of her chair so she was on her knees, "if Luke couldn't . . . how can I?"

Her body was now rocking with sobs, the strong woman that used to be here reduced to a shivering, old woman. Mara slid off her chair as well, coming right up against the former president of the Republic. "Leia," she said, forcing the older looking woman to look her in the face again, "I loved him too." What that meant to either Leia or Mara mattered little, only that it was true.

"Of course you did," Leia sobbed, collapsing against Mara, the two embracing. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry about everything."

"No," Mara corrected, her hands massaging the tension out of Leia's shoulders, "you have nothing to be sorry about. You have lost a lot and aren't thinking straight. We'll get through this together."

They stayed there on the floor for at least fifteen more minutes, Mara simply supporting her friend while Leia let out all of her penned up anguish. Mara finally got up when Leia stopped her sobbing. "You need to find strength, Leia," Mara said smoothly. "I think I know how we can get your brother back, but it won't be easy, and I'm going to need your help. If we give up now then Snotzenexer wins, and we can't have that happen, right?"

Leia nodded mutely and got up with Mara. "I'll try. What do you need me to do?"

"First I need you to become stable. I know it must sound awful, but you have to put Jacen behind you. You need to let the past be the past. Learn from it but don't dwell on it." It looked like Leia might begin to cry again, but she didn't. "Once you are strong enough, I want you to try and contact Luke. I've tried, but I don't have near the same connection that you have.

"I want you to spend sometime with Streen," Mara continued. "I heard he tried to help you before, but I have a feeling he was the only one trying." Leia nodded, knowing what Mara was talking about. "He'll be able to strengthen you emotionally and physically. Meanwhile, I need to get in touch with Anakin. Do you know where he is?"

Leia nodded. "He's with Wedge in the Denorid system."

Mara rolled her eyes. There was an entirely different mess that needed to be sorted out. But not by me, Mara thought. Snotzenexer can handle that one, and he'll probably do a very decent job. "Do you know how I can get in contact with him?"

"Streen would know. You can use the com room in the adjacent building."

***

Mara was seated in front of the main Academy computer. She had just gotten in contact with the Republic fleet in the Denorid system and had left a message for Anakin to call her at his earliest convenience. Now she was busy looking through the archives of the Academy, becoming more impressed by the second. She knew Tionne had little Force skill but enjoyed researching the Jedi lore. What Mara didn't know was along with the lore came a good bit of galactic history. In order to make any sense out of the assorted bits involving Jedi Tionne had been forced to download a lot of material from the Coruscant library. Tionne had done an incredible job of organizing the information, making this the best place Mara knew of to get historical information.

There were plenty of questions Mara had, and she found most of the answers were right in front of her. Ra'tok had told her his race inhabited an enshrouded, primitive world. The coverage brought in little light, causing the rest of the universe to ignore it. It was also very hard to locate due to the fact the nebula covered over nine tenths of the system. A dark home-world planet would definitely explain Ra'tok's abhorrence of bright light and his ability to see exceptionally well. None of this, though, explained Chewie's reaction to him.

The computer archive had quite a bit to say about Defels. Since the beginning of recorded history, the Defels and Togorians had been mortal enemies. The computer described Togorians as Feline creatures who were vicious warriors, reaching heights of up to three meters. Ra'tok was only as tall as Mara, almost half as tall as a Togorian. Mara had no idea how tall the average Defel was and living on a dark world probably didn't encourage growth, but the average height difference between the races was probably close to a meter.

Along with being an incredibly strong race, the Togorians were also noted as being one of the most honorable sentients in the galaxy. When a Togorian gave you his word, it was good till the end of time. Those companies or governments that were clever enough to entrap a Togorian in his word used them as bodyguards. Once one of them promised to protect something or someone, they did so no matter how corrupt the corporation. There were a few instances when the government or business lied, cheated, or killed to earn the services of the Togorian, but if the Togorian found out, then his contract would be null and void.

The Defel were described as a violent race who, in the early parts of history explored the galaxy, stealing technology and becoming very strong. As soon as they met the Togorians, a war erupted between the two races that lasted a hundred years. "Fighting like cats and dogs," Mara said under her breath. This had happened over five hundred years ago. The Defel had used stealth and trickery while the Togorians used straight up size and strength.

There was one bit of the history that had a footnote by it claiming it to be only rumor. It said that during the war some of the Defel began to respect the Togorian's honor code and wanted to end the fighting. This was only a small portion of the population. There was a brief civil war that easily put down the dissenters. Officially, there were no reported survivors on the rebels' side, but unofficially the few survivors were sent to an unexplored, primitive world to be dealt with after the war with the Togorians.

The war ended with the Togorians eventually annihilating the Defel. The few surviving Defel went in to hiding, using their low level of visibility to their advantage. The record said most of the remaining Defel found jobs as bodyguards or assassins for powerful crime lords and financial tycoons. There was a brief mention that the Togorians went looking for the world where the few surviving rebels were sent. There was no record of whether they were ever found.

Nothing else major happened to the Togorians until about thirty years ago. The records said that in the fight against the Empire the Togorians were one of the races that fought their own war. The next line surprised Mara a bit. It said the Togorians fought along side the Wookiees. The Wookiees' fight against the Empire was well known, since they were often taken as slaves, but the Togorians had no ties either way. The history explained that a Wookiee visited Togoria, and a strong friendship between the two honorable races began.

There was another footnote here that looked to have been added by someone here at the Academy. Mara called up the footnote and was shocked at what she saw. The footnote was written by Luke and explained how Han had befriended a Togorian couple when he rescued them from a slave world. He then visited the Togorian world later with Chewie.

Mara sat back from the computer screen. Han Solo, she thought. He had brought two races together all by himself. Both of the races had a terrible lot in common, from the way they lived their lives down to the make up of their home worlds. The history didn't say much else, but Mara could extrapolate what she needed to know from what she had read.

Ra'tok was a descendent of the exiled rebels. They had decided to throw away their race's tendency for hatred, and instead mimicked the Togorian's honor code. The Togorians also probably located the shrouded planet, and made peace with the remaining Defel. Chewie had recognized Ra'tok as a Defel immediately, and knew the Defel as mortal enemies of the Togorians. Apparently the three races must have a way to identify themselves through their sense of smell, and Chewie was able to identify Ra'tok as a friend.

Mara got up from her chair, satisfied with what she had discovered. Anakin would call back when he was able, but in the meantime, she had work to do on her ship.

Interlude I

And then there was darkness.

Or was it always darkness? But if there is an "always" then when was the beginning and was it dark? Or will there be a "soon" or a "just happened" and will they too be dark? If it was just dark then what was it before? What is darkness? Is it not merely the absence of light? If it is not really dark then should it not be . . .

And then there was no light.

But if darkness is an absence, then how can it have a presence? How can it "be" at all? Maybe darkness doesn't exist. Maybe light always "is." If so, then what is "now?" Now there is no light. Now it is darkness. Maybe there is light but no one to see it. If there is no one then who am I?

Then there was I.

Am I a thing? Or am I a presence, like the darkness? Or is the absence of light a presence? Is there anything other than I? If I am the only presence, then light could not exist for it would be a presence. If there were two presences then I would not be alone. But am I a presence or is the absence of light always present to deny anything else existence? What is the meaning of "anything else?" Are there other presences besides what is? What is? Am I? Or is darkness? To merely ask the question implies that I am. That means that darkness is not. Or can we both exist? If there are two might there also be more?

Then there was more.

If more would exist would they be like me? Or would they be like the darkness? If the presence of darkness is merely the realization of an absence, then would other presences be realizations of their absences? If there is an absence, then it represents a forgotten presence. What is it to forget? To forget implies that one would remember. To remember implies the past. What was before? If it is dark now, was it always dark? In order for light to be absent, it had to be at one time present. Or does it? Is it enough to merely think of light once existing? Where would that thought come from but from a memory? If I remember light, then it must have existed and me with it. If more exist in absence then I would remember them. If they exist in presence, I would then have to first know them before they existed to me.

Then there were memories.

If anything that will exist has to come from me, can I then control what exists? Is the darkness here only because I can't remember what light was? Would more be here if I could remember them? Am I alone only because I am without thought? If I knew what I had forgotten, I would not have forgotten it and therefore would not be surrounded by absences. What does it mean to be surrounded? If I am surrounded by absences, there must be a space in which I am surrounded. If there is a space, I would be together with that space. Can a space hold nothing? Can a space exist if there is only absences in it? I would not be surrounded by absences if there was no space in which to surround me. Therefore there must not only be absences with me, but presences.

Then there was cognition.

If there are more with me in this space, then I must remember them, or else they would be absences. I must therefore remember, but can not access those memories. I am not alone. I exist in the absence of light because I do not remember what was before. I also exist in the absence of more because of the lack of their memory. They do exist, or I would not exist in a space. If there was no space, I could not exist. Since I have thought, I must exist. Since I must exist, there must be space.

And then there was space.

Since there is a space, I must also have memory of those things around me. Darkness is what I see - no, correction - what I do not see. To see is to take in light. There is no light for I do not see. What is the difference between seeing and thinking? Or smelling? Or hearing? Or feeling? Or tasting? Or knowing? If I can understand darkness, then to realize the opposite would be to know light. If I know light, then I have remembered it.

And then there was light.

If light exists in my memory and I have access to it, I can see. To see involves reflection. Off what does the light reflect? This is the more - the others. To see them would be to remember them. Or would to remember them be to see them? Light and darkness are opposites. One or the other must exist. Are the others like that? Are they absolute? Am I absolute? If I think and know, then I must exist. But if light does not exist, then darkness exists. Can I be defined by an opposite? If I do not exist then I am not. Am I then dead? In order to be dead, one must first be alive.

Then there was life.

I must be alive. If I am alive then I exist. If I were dead, I would have once been alive. Does the absence of life imply the absence of existence? Is light alive? It exists, but it has no life. To remove its existence would not be to kill it. I was in darkness, but now I am not. Once something is dead, it does not come back. What is dead still exists. My mere existence does not imply that I am alive or dead. But if I am dead, how do I think? If I am alive, where are the others. I am confused.

Then there was inspiration.

Could I exist apart from life and death? Is there something other than light or darkness? No. There must be only two to determine one from the other. Then what is color? Color is the absence of part of the light. With color both light and dark exist. Can this be with me? Can I be dead but alive. I see what I think. Could this mean that I don't see at all but only think and imply sight from what I know? I can not feel. I can not taste. I can not hear. I can not smell. I don't think I can see. If I can see, off what is the light reflecting? Since I do not know, I can not see, and the two are not independent. I can not see. These things must be dead for they exist only in their absence. But I think and I know. These things are alive.

Then there were names.

If others exist with me in this space, are they like me? Are some of them dead? Are some of them alive? Are some of them dead and alive? I must know them to see them. I must remember them to know them. There is light and darkness. These are labels to represent a reality. If the others exist, they are a reality. They must have labels. They must have names. If I was with them before, then I once knew these names. How can I remember them if they are not absolute? The darkness made itself known to me. From it I extrapolated light. I knew the name of the darkness because it needed a label for thoughts to be made about it. In order to know a name, there needs to be a thought of the reality it represents.

Then the floodgates opened.

Jaina, Anakin, Leia, Han, Luke, Mara, Wedge, Lando. These others exist. Do they exist with me? If to know them is to see them, and I now know them, why don't I see them? They must only exist in their absence. It is the same way with my sight and other senses. The others once existed but no longer do. Or do they still exist, but my ability to see them does not. Since I know that I don't see, and that these others exist, then they must exist where my senses once did. They must be alive. I must be dead.

They opened a little wider.

If to know is not to see, then how can I see what is with me in this space? It is not enough to know of something's existence. You must also know it is present with you. Do I know of other presences with me? Do I know others who have died? Ben, Yoda, Anakin. These others have died. If I am dead, then they are with me. If I know them then I can see them.

And he did.

Chapter 6 "Eran"

Eranadis Palpatine looked forlornly at his chrono and then at Jaina Solo. They had now progressed into their two hundredth hour together and Jaina had still not spoken to him. He didn't feel too left out, though, because she hadn't said anything to anyone. There were several other things she hadn't done during those two hundred hours. Jaina was still in a total state of shock from witnessing her brother's death by his own lightsaber in the hands of none other than Eran. She hadn't moved, blinked, eaten, slept, or done any of the other normal conscious activity. As far as Eran could tell, she wasn't breathing and her heart wasn't beating. The only reason he hadn't buried her yet was that her body was still warm. Besides that he could some how sense life in her.

Despite his last name, Eranadis Palpatine had no Force skill that he was aware of. He could not deny his ability to put his mind and body at perfect peace right before combat, nor could he ignore his ability to perform extreme feats of strength or incredible moments of dexterity. He knew he had a close connection with the Force, but he could not manipulate it nor control it. He had spent hours trying to flip off his bedroom lights without getting out of bed, but the switch didn't so much as quiver. Even without Force strength or knowledge, he knew how Jaina was still alive. She was in a Force hibernation, one that she had not put herself in and therefore not one she could take herself out of.

Jaina's body had been stiff and unbending even under Eran's advanced strength. She had been frozen in her pose of realization when she understood her brother had died. She had been on her knees, her body in the shape of the number "2" with her hands over her open mouth and her eyes wide open.

This pose had made it very difficult for Eran to bring her back to Mos Eisley on his stolen swoop. He got quite a few odd looks as he carried her in to a rented hotel room, everyone swearing she was some type of mannequin or malfunctioning droid.

After a day of letting Jaina remain in that pose, Eran realized she wasn't coming out of this trance any time soon, and he went to a med shop to get some muscle relaxants. They worked, barely. As soon as Eran had wrestled her into a comfortable looking position, the relaxants wore off and she went stiff again.

Eran had enough money from the sale of the furniture he had delivered to the palace on Coruscant, so he had paid the hotel manager for a week. That week was now over and Eran still had no idea how he was going to get off the planet. He had enough money for a hotel, but not enough to buy a ship, or to repair his. Jacen and Jaina had disabled it after he had landed, and he didn't know where their ship was or he'd have left by now.

He thought about stealing a ship but that required a fast get away. Transporting a stiff Jaina was nothing if not slow. He didn't want to risk carrying her in a shoot out, with her not being able to defend herself.

Eran had talked to a few gamblers and shopkeepers about air traffic records to see if he could get a record of where the twin's ship had landed. All of them said the same thing, "Talk to Korpin Feeler."

Ever since Jaina's uncle had rid this barren planet of the Huts' influence, there had been a power struggle for control, and Korpin Feeler had won. Eran hadn't bothered going to look for him, but he knew his type and had gotten a good description of him from some of the people he had spoken to. He was big. There were rumors about what race he was, but only rumors and no real answer. He looked human at first, but then you got a good look at his double row of teeth when he spoke. Then when he hit you (he invariably hit everyone) you saw muscles on his huge shoulders that didn't look familiar on any human. As you looked in the mirror later and saw the huge red mark on your face from his fist, you would see five knuckle marks. Five fingers and one thumb was also not normal for a human hand.

Besides his unknown race, Korpin Feeler was just plain big. He was over two meters tall and half that wide. He had fought his way to the top and now that he had gotten there, he had let his physique go to waste - or perhaps saying it went to waist would be more appropriate. He enjoyed his food so much the current joke was that the Hutts were back in power. Of course no one said this to his face if they wanted to keep theirs.

Eran sighed as he thought he would have to go see the crime lord after all. He had tried other ways to find the ship. He had visited all the hangars and asked about long time visitors. He was shown plenty of ships, but having never seen the twin's ship before, he couldn't know which one it was. Some of the ships were just downright pieces of junk. One ship looked like it was constructed by simply gluing pieces of broken down fighters together. Eran doubted the ship would survive one minute in space, much less lift off.

Eran looked at Jaina on last time, feeling confident now that she wouldn't wake up while he was gone. He had started wearing both of Jacen's lightsabers whereever he went. He hid them under a loose fitting dust jacket, a common article of clothing during the windy season. Eran hadn't had the opportunity to use the weapons yet, but if there was going to be an opportunity, it would come during his meeting with Korpin Feeler. Eran had trained with almost every weapon imaginable and two short swords had been one of his more prolific talents, enabling his excellent dexterity to shine through. After fiddling with the two weapons he saw they had two settings, one for a meter long blade, and a shorter setting at two-thirds of a meter. This shorter setting was ideal when using both weapons. The former government agent also wore a snugly slung blaster.

Eran stepped out into the burning afternoon suns, squinting as he always did. He made his way to a recently acquired landspeeder which he bought/stole from an old shopkeeper. Eran had been told Korpin Feeler's headquarters were at the opposite edge of Mos Eisley and would be very easy to find because "it will be the place where no one else is going," someone had told him.

There was a very large complex on the edge of the town, and from the security (or in Eran's trained eye, the lack thereof) Eran could tell he had found his destination. There was a crude wall almost three meters high with what looked like, in the blowing sand, a shock-shield surrounding the top another meter high. The wall encompassed the building complex and a couple extra hundred square meters of grass. It wasn't the lush green grass you might find surrounding any important building on a normal planet. Instead it was harsh brown grass filled with thorny weeds, but on this dessert planet it almost looked nice.

The building complex itself was composed of five huge cylinders of varying heights and made from the same gray-brown stone block that had been used for every other building on this planet. There were a few windows high up in the complex and only one main door that Eran could see.

The gate into the compound was open and unguarded. Eran could see two turret turbo lasers mounted on the top of either pedestal flanking the entrance. There was a crude sign scribbled in several languages that said, "Don't walk on the grass." Eran could imagine Korpin's glee every time someone stepped on the weed infested lawn and he got to watch them incinerated. Turbo lasers for a security system against sentients were really overkill.

At the entrance to the complex stood a security droid. The joints on the droid were so filled with dust Eran would be surprised if the thing could still walk. In spite of the droid's condition, the blaster riffle built into its left arm looked clean enough.

"State your name and business," it said flatly.

"Eranadis Palandon. I'm here to see Korpin Feeler."

"Do you have a scheduled meeting?"

Eran knew you didn't need an appointment to see a man as infrequently visited as this crime lord, but he decided to play along. "Yes."

The security droid also knew there were no appointments and was only programmed to say this so he could turn people away. "Korpin is busy and you can not see him now."

"Should I reschedule with his secretary?"

Like all security droids who got confused it decided to resort to violence. It raised its weapon arm. "You have five seconds to remove yourself from this area. You are trespassing."

Eran heard the awful grinding noise as the droid bent its elbow and saw bits of rust fall from the joint like ground pepper. The move Eran made was so fast that even if the droid had been expecting it, he could not have stopped it. Eran grabbed the barrel of the blaster riffle with his left hand, brought his right knee up underneath the appendage, and brought his right hand down in a vicious chop on the delicate joint. The limb snapped off at the elbow like a rotted tree limb.

"Correction," Eran said to the droid, "you have five seconds to open this door before I break off your other arm and beat you senseless with it."

Security droids don't have great logic circuits, but it could tell that it was beat here. "Yes sir." The droid opened the door with its still operational arm. The huge blast door opened with a rusty and gritty groan. Eran peered in briefly before entering, fearing a retaliation for what he had done to the droid. Eran wasn't blasted from within the dark interior of the building, so he assumed it was at least momentarily safe. "Have a nice day, sir."

Eran laughed silently to himself as he passed the oblivious droid into the building. The door slid closed slowly behind him and Eran let his eyes adjust to the drastic change in lighting before continuing. Two men walked up to him quickly. Both had very pale skin for this sunny of a planet, and Eran realized that Korpin must not let them out much. Though both of them had a blaster trained on him Eran could sense quite a bit of nervous apprehension in their stances. Apparently there were cameras that had shown the inner guards what Eran had done to the droid.

"What are you here for?" one of them asked, trying to keep the trembling out of his voice.

"Hey fellas, put your guns away. I just want to talk with your boss, that's all."

"What if we say he's busy?" the other one tried.

Eran shrugged. "I probably wouldn't believe you and would be forced to hurt you to get past."

This bold statement seemed to put them ill at ease. They both held their blasters a little tighter, leveling the sights on Eran's chest. Eran's casual acceptance of their positions made them wonder if they should just blast him right there. "Give us your weapons and we will see if the Honorable Feeler is available."

Eran first handed them the arm he had ripped off the droid. The guard on the right took it awkwardly. Eran then unholstered his blaster and handed that over. Before they could attempt a search, he bent over and took a vibroblade out of an ankle sheath. As he handed the knife to one of the guards, blade leading, he spoke, "These are all my weapons, understand?"

As the guard reached to take hold of the blade gingerly, Eran's finger was poised over the actuator that would make the blade vibrate a few hundred times a second, slicing off any, if not all, of the guards fingers that got to close. The guard finally pinched the weapon with two fingers in the center of the ten-centimeter blade.

Neither of the guards wanted to search the dangerous looking man who had so willingly given them a weapon that they probably wouldn't have found even if they had done a search. The two guards holstered their weapons and led Eran down the hallway. There were several doors on either side of the main hall that probably led into the inner bowels of the under-chambers. Or maybe they were simple quarters, either way, Eran knew he didn't want to have to take a tour of this ill-kept complex.

The audience chamber was at the end of the hall and Eran could hear loud snapping sounds coming from the well-lit room. Shouts of "Don't ever refuse me again" and "Play that again and do it right" floated down the hall in between the snapping noises that Eran wanted to believe were being made by a whip.

Everything became clear when the trio rounded the last bend and Eran could see into the chamber. There was a small band playing some dance music while a scantily clad woman (Eran had to look twice to make sure that she was indeed clothed) danced before a mountain of a . . .thing. Eran realized that the warning's he had received about the size of this crime lord hadn't done him justice. He did look like a small Hut, a huge blob sitting in a chair that Eran thought he wouldn't be able to rise from in anything less than a full minute.

A second look at the man as Eran was brought closer, showed him otherwise. There were huge muscles underneath the rolls of fat. So many, in fact, that Eran did not look forward to fighting this man, a task he had convinced himself would be necessary to get him access to the flight records he needed.

"Hey boy," the huge man's tongue snapped as one with his whip. The whip found a young boy who had been sitting near by, tracing a thin line of blood on his arm. The line, Eran could see, was one of many that laid on the lad's arm. "Boy, fetch our visitor some alcohol and be quick about it, else my whip will find your hide in a spot it will hurt much worse."

Eran changed his mind. He was now looking forward to pummeling this man very much. "Really, I'm fine," Eran replied, now standing in front of the seated monstrosity. Regardless of what Eran said, the boy scampered off, more than likely simply to get outside of the whip's range. The two guards stood on either side of Eran, about two meters distant from the dangerous youth, giving him space to talk with their boss.

"Perhaps you would like something to eat?" the gross man picked at a bowl next to him. He pulled up a handful of what looked like seaweed. Eran swore he could see something writhing inside the mass, but didn't stare too long at the tangle as it found itself into Korpin's huge mouth.

"No thank-you, Honorable Feeler, I am simply here on a quest for information."

"Information, aye? A man like you should know that is the most expensive kind of trade. What kind of information?"

Eran saw what was going to happen only a split second before it did. The dancing girl had taken a seat on her designated cushion after her routine, and now that her boss was distracted, she thought she might be able to slink away and get out of range of the whip. Such was not the case. Korpin's meaty, whip-bearing arm flashed like the wind, but Eran's left arm flashed like lightning. The whip stretched out its hungry tongue toward the tantalizing flesh, but Eran grabbed the middle of the whip before it had a chance to snap back. Eran wrenched it out of the huge man's hand and let his grip slide down to the handle.

Korpin's two guards were faster than Eran had expected, but not half as fast as Eran. Both guards drew their weapons, and Eran reached into the left side of his jacket, drawing one of Jacen's lightsabers with his right hand. Both blasters came level at Eran, but a whip stole one of the weapons from the man's grasp, while a lightsaber destroyed the other. Eran deactivated and stowed the lightsaber quick enough to catch the whipped weapon in his right hand, which he then holstered. The whip he simply tossed over his shoulder.

Like he had never moved, Eran stood as calmly as he had three short seconds ago before the action had started. "Nothing really important," Eran replied to Korpin's nearly forgotten question, "just some flight logs."

Korpin wasn't exactly sure what to think, much less do about what he had just seen. Eran had just challenged his authority over his woman, and had made fools out of his guards. At the same time, he had not made a direct move against Korpin. Eran could very easily have shot the large man at point blank range but had not. Korpin enjoyed a good show, but also realized that he would not be able to lean on this visitor without serious repercussions. And of course Korpin intended to lean heavily on him. The large man swindled everyone that managed to walk into his private chamber and swindled them badly.

Then there was also the lightsaber the man had used. At least that was what Korpin had thought the brief flash of blue had been. If that was the case, then on top of everything else he had done, he was a Jedi. Even with all this knowledge, Korpin was not scared, only curious of what he should do.

"What type of flight logs?" Korpin asked, deciding to see how this curious fellow wanted to play the game.

"I wish to locate a ship that docked in Mos Eisley about a week ago. The ship belonged to a friend of mine. He passed on and I don't want to leave it here for the Jawas to have. He neglected to tell me what it looked like or where he had parked it."

Korpin thought for a while. The game was over now. Korpin thought the man would lie as to what he really wanted, but the small lie detector mounted in the crime lord's chair told him that everything this man had just said was true. "Why don't you return my whip and I'll think about it."

Eran knew the big man was about to try something as a result of that odd request. Without turning his back, bending over, or letting his eyes leave the seated monster, Eran took a step back, slipped his foot under the middle of the whip and flipped the dreadful weapon into his hand.

Korpin noticed that Eran had looped the end of the whip around his right hand as he handed the handle back. If this little pipsqueak wanted to play a game of tug of war, he'd comply. As soon as Korpin had the handle of the whip in his hand, he yanked viciously and Eran flew off his feet and up toward the elevated the man.

The two opponents bellied up to each other with Korpin grabbing a loose flap of Eran's coat in one of his meaty hands. The man stood from his chair in one sixtieth of the minute Eran had predicted for the task. He now held his smaller opponent high in the air, Eran's feet dangling at least thirty centimeters above the floor. "Let me tell you something, Jedi. I control this building, city, and planet. And until I tell you otherwise, you will do exactly what I tell you. I say 'jump,' you say 'how high?' I say 'fart,' you say 'how loud?' Do you understand?"

Eran had to figure out which way to play this. He could assume he would be able to beat this man no matter the circumstances, or he could play frightened for a while until a better time presented itself. He decided with the earlier. "I have this stomach problem, though, that doesn't always allow me to pass gas on demand."

Korpin couldn't believe what he was hearing from this little runt. Here he held the man's life in his hands, literally, and he still mouthed off. His guards had attained weapons from somewhere and were standing right behind Eran with blasters drawn. Eran could also sense the guards standing there. He swung his legs forward, straddling the wide man and then swung them back hard. Both his heels found the faces of the guards, sending them sprawling.

Eran reached into the small of his back and pulled out another sheathed vibroblade. Korpin heard the whir of the weapon and threw Eran before he could bring the knife to bare. Eran was supposed to hit the ground hard, but instead rolled gracefully to his feet.

Korpin pulled a blaster rifle from a holster on the side of his chair, the large weapon looking like a pistol in the behemoth's hand. He fired at Eran's last known position, but the elusive man was already on the move. Eran brought both lightsabers out and ignited them. Korpin fired twice more, and again scorched the spot on the ground where Eran had until recently been.

"I thought you Jedi could block laser fire," Korpin said calmly as he missed twice more.

"We only worry about the shots that come close to hitting us," Eran said, trying to keep the strain out of his voice. He only wished he could block laser fire.

Korpin decided to forget about the blaster rifle. He might be able to hit Eran eventually, he thought, but that was a very impersonal way to kill a man. He wanted to rip Eran apart with his bare hands.

Eran wasn't that picky and briefly deactivated one of his weapons to draw the blaster he had stolen. He made sure the setting was on max power and fired. The bolt hit the big man in the chest, but he didn't even stagger. Eran fired three more times, with no better result. Finally Eran simply tossed the useless weapon aside and prepared himself for a fight.

The band, the dancer, and any other conscious being had cleared out of the room by now, and Korpin dreaded having to round them all up again after he finished with this puny annoyance. This made him twice as angry as before. He managed to pick up a huge oak table in passing and hurl it at his nemesis. Eran thought briefly about slicing the huge piece of furniture in half, but had no real assurance that neither piece would still hit him. He dove out of the way as the table destroyed a small drink bar behind him.

Eran watched from a distance as Korpin walked slowly over to one of the walls in the chamber. There hung an enormous sword. It was over a meter long and must have weighed over ten kilograms. "You know what this is, Jedi? It's a Mandalorian vibrosword. These were designed for killing pests like you."

Mandalorian, Eran thought regretfully, that is why the blaster didn't work on him. He's wearing armor under his clothes.

Korpin didn't give him too much time to think about it, leaping quickly across the room despite his size and coming down with a vicious strike from on high. Eran didn't even want to contemplate blocking the attack and rolled under it and to the side. Eran came up with both blades poised to block and managed to absorb a backhanded swiped. The smaller fighter rolled with the strike and swung at the monster's exposed legs. Both blades found their target, cut through the thin fabric of Korpin's pants, and sparked off the armor underneath.

Eran quickly sprang from his crouched position and saw out of the corner of his eye the chair he had been squatting next to exploded in a plume of splinters. Eran became erect and walked quickly toward his opponent, not allowing him another charge. The much shorter fighter began swinging wildly, yet in rhythm, at the much larger fighter. Both Eran and Korpin knew that while Mandalorian armor was impervious to lightsabers and blaster fire, it couldn't take indefinite punishment and wasn't seamless. Korpin was still vulnerable at his knees, elbows, shoulders, and waist to say nothing about his exposed hands and face.

Korpin batted aside the dangerous strikes, letting the less meaningful ones reflect off his armor. The crime lord quickly saw that this fighter, Jedi or not, knew his way around a pair of lightsabers and was far more nimble than he. There was no way he would be able to block all the strokes Eran laid on him and still put up any meaningful offense.

After a perfectly executed feint, that sent Korpin off balance, Eran sliced smoothly across the big man's waist. Korpin felt a leather strap snap and his chest plate shifted slightly. He also felt a searing pain in his side where the tip of Eran's blade had found a seam.

The big man lashed out with his foot while he swung a roundhouse with his sword. Eran had not expected his opponent to be nimble enough to use anything but his sword, and had planned on rolling with the block of the swipe, but instead was forced to roll backwards with the kick, and taking a shocking blow from the sword. He had blocked the attack with his sabers, but the impact nearly dislocated his left shoulder.

Eran decided it was time to pull out all the stops. He thinks I'm a Jedi, he thought, let's do some Jedi type moves. Eran was able to spring back to his feet after the kick and saw that Korpin was simply swinging his large weapon back across his body again in a backhand swipe as is he were harvesting wheat with a scythe. Instead of blocking the attack, Eran leaped high in the air over the dangerous blade and reached out with his foot, kicking the big man in the face.

The kick would have flipped anyone else over, might have even killed a much weaker man, but Korpin let his neck absorb the blow. A small trickle of blood came from the nose though, and Eran used his opponent's stability as resistance to flip backward. Korpin rushed his distant adversary again. His sword was poised over his shoulder to smash Eran. Instead of dodging to the side, the smaller man dove in between the charging legs of his opponent. Korpin had let the tip of the sword follow his elusive enemy, not wanting him to get away, but now had to halt his weapon in mid swing less he cut off his own leg.

This halt in momentum put Korpin off balance briefly, allowing Eran to squeeze through the huge legs and still score a hit on the back of the already wounded side. This time Korpin actually released a howl of pain at the injury. "I'm going to smash you!" Without looking, the crime lord turned and lashed blindly behind him. Eran stayed close to the man's back and inside the swing, using one of his blades to block the big sword at the handle and let the other one search out the inside of the giant's knee. The blocking blade removed one of Korpin's fingers, while the other blade nearly hamstrung him.

Korpin went briefly to one knee and looked like he might fall backwards to crush Eran. The smaller fighter leaped nimbly away, but soon saw that the uneasiness of his opponent had just been a feint to get rid of the pest at his back. Korpin pivoted on his good knee and tested his other leg as he rose. If his other leg hurt when he put weight on it, Eran couldn't really tell because Korpin's face was a mask of rage.

Eran noticed he had leaped blindly into a corner of the room. There was the destroyed drink bar on one side of him with broken glass and the frame of the thrown table, and on the other side was a small platform where the band played.

Korpin walked in slowly now, not wanting to give the quick-footed warrior a chance to spin or roll out of this one. As he walked, the big man rotated the heavy sword around in his wrist. He was missing one of his fingers, giving him only five on his sword hand, but if that bothered him, the experienced eyes of Eran couldn't tell as the big weapon flowed smoothly around Korpin's body.

Eran saw only one way out of this corner. In the middle of Korpin's routine and while the big man was still a couple meters away, Eran faked a charge. Korpin quickly brought his sword in front of his chest vertically, protecting against any attack to his upper body. Instead of striking, Eran pivoted one hundred eighty degrees and ran back at the corner.

With Eran's back to him, Korpin's eyes lit up, and he thrust his weapon with both hands straightforward from its vertical position, tip leading. He meant to skewer Eran's spine, but the agile youth had other plans. Eran's left foot found the band platform and pushed off, letting the thrust pass just underneath his crotch.

Korpin saw an opportunity to cut his enemy up the middle and quickly brought his weapon up. Eran had leaped off the platform, and his right foot found the other wall in the corner pushing up and back. To any observer (the dancing girl was watching from the hallway) it looked as if Korpin was throwing Eran with his blade, but the quick fighter stayed just a hair's breadth in front of the huge blade. Korpin followed the youth's path over his head until his blade was parallel with the floor, some three meters in the air. He should have brought it another ninety degrees.

As Eran completed his flip over his big adversary, he made a hard scissors cut with his blades right above the giant's shoulders. Eran landed lightly on the ground behind his opponent, and Korpin's head landed next to him. The crime lord held his macabre pose fore several, long moments, before he began to teeter backwards, the momentum of his sword deciding the direction of his final resting-place.

Eran was so shocked by the sudden ending of the fight that he almost forgot to get out of the way of the falling giant. Eran took three quick steps back and then a delayed fourth as the huge sword imbedded itself into the floor right in front of him. Half of the enormous weapon was buried in the stone, both of Korpin's hands still grasping at the handle, never to let go.

Eran deactivated both of his weapons and breathed out a huge sigh, releasing all of the penned up stress from the fight. He turned around to survey the room. It looked like a Calamarian typhoon had ripped through the chamber. All of this over a few simple flight logs, Eran thought. He was just about to check on one of the unconscious guards, when a movement from the hallway caught his attention. He looked briefly into the eyes of a very scared dancing girl, and then she bolted.

"Wait!" he called after her, but she was gone. Eran suddenly felt rejuvenated, as if he hadn't just had the fight of his life and leaped over a fallen table to chase her. When he reached the entry to the hall, a different hallway than the one he had been led down earlier, he saw her turn a corner up ahead.

The girl knew her way around the complex pretty well, but Eran was far too fast. After rounding the corner he leaped down nearly a full flight of stairs and nearly crushed her as she turned to run do the next flight. Eran reached out and caught one of her trailing wrists. She had been running hard, and Eran was nearly yanked down the stairs, but instead it was the girl who lost her footing. Eran kept her from tumbling and brought her up to him, safely on the landing. At least Eran thought he was bringing her to safety. The girl thought she was going to be brutally raped and beaten by the man who had just killed her boss. This girl had long ago given up the idea that anyone would come and rescue her.

"Don't worry," Eran said above her frantic yelling and punching, "I'm not going to hurt you. You can go free if you want. I just want to know where Feeler kept his computers and air traffic logs."

The girl seemed to calm somewhat, having remembered Eran saying something like that when she had tried to slink away from her boss. Maybe this guy was on the level. "Do you speak Basic?" Eran asked, getting no vocal response from the scared girl. The girl nodded slowly. "Can you show me where the computers are?" Again the girl nodded. She paused briefly to see if there were anymore questions, and then led Eran up the stairs.

Two hours later found Eran standing in a hangar. From the sensor logs he had been able to narrow down his choice of ships to two. The first had already left Tatooine three days ago and Eran envied them. The second ship was standing in front of him now. It was the same ship he had seen earlier that looked like a collection of scrap. Even now that he knew this was the ship that had chased him all over the galaxy, it still looked like a piece of junk.

Jaina was still in the hotel. Eran had paid for one more night and made sure Jaina hadn't awoken yet before checking on the ships. Eran was concerned on how to get into the spaceship. There didn't seem to be any latch, or keypad that he could access.

Eran walked up to the ship and leaned against one of the pillions as he tried to look in one of the hatches to see a way to get in. As he leaned against the pillion, one of the lightsabers in his coat pressed up against his chest and he had an idea. When he had been fiddling with the weapon earlier he had found a switch that he couldn't explain. Eran removed one of the lightsabers now and pressed the switch. The space ship seemed to come alive and the hatchway to the inside of the ship opened.

Another two hours later found Eran and Jaina in the Scavenger flying far away from Mos Eisely. Jaina was still out and lying on her bed while Eran was in the cockpit trying to figure out how to get into hyperspace in the custom made ship. Eran had no idea how he was going to explain this situation, but he wanted to take Jaina back to Coruscant so that maybe her mother could figure something out. If he had to, Eran would simply leave Jaina in the palace anonymously, not wanting to have to face charges of murder. Especially not for murdering a Jedi, even if it was only in self defense.

Eran finally figured out the nav computer in the Scavenger and he blasted off for Coruscant.

Chapter 7 "Luke"

Day 4

It's been four days and I have finally eaten. I know I am a Jedi Master, but I don't see how the Empire could have counted on me staying alive. Maybe that was the point. I know the government that exiled me here to this ice ball is technically the Republic, but I believe Snotzenexer will make sure that title is only accurate in name and not spirit.

I am not making any excuses for my actions that forced this exile, but the actions would not have occurred had Snotzenexer not taken power. Again, that in and of itself does not make me blameless, but it is the only answer I have been able to come up with. Even that is not much of an excuse. To the uninformed observer, Snotzenexer had done nothing wrong to force my treason. On the contrary, he had saved the Republic from certain ruin, restoring it to twice its previous power. Regardless of outward appearances, I am a Jedi and I need to act upon my instincts. Given the chance again, I would still try to confront Snotzenexer, but with my hindsight, I would be less forceful and more cautious.

I ran across a small animal this morning. I am not sure what it was, but the meat was adequate. I'm not sure how much longer I can go on like this. I am heading south, and from what I can sense in the magnetic polarization of this planet, I am still about five hundred kilometers from the equator. How much warmer the belt-line of this planet will be I don't know, but I must try to get there. May the Force be with me.

Luke opened his eyes slowly. He had been keeping a mental log ever since he had arrived on Hoth, storing his thoughts in the recesses of his mind, accessible to him or anyone with Force sensitivity. He'd seen what extreme cold could do to some people's memory or state of mind, and if he was ever found or rescued, he wanted Leia or one of her children to have some sort of record of what had happened to him.

As Luke slowly fell out of his trance, the cold became more noticeable. The Jedi Master pulled his coat tightly around himself, trying to see if there were any warm sections of fabric left in the thin covering. Luke still remembered when he had been given the coat four days ago and what the exilers/executioners had told him.

"Well, Master Skywalker," the man said as a prelude to the sentence he was about to read, "you are hereby sentenced to eternal exile on this planet of Hoth. You will not be aloud to ever leave this planet for as long as you shall live or until the current government is no longer in power, at which time your case may be reviewed at the discretion of the new government. All rights you have enjoyed as a citizen of the Republic have been revoked and any attempt to leave this planet will invoke the harshest of consequences. Good luck, may the Force be with you."

Luke had been staring at the shuttle's exit ramp the entire time his sentence was being read. Now he watched as the door slowly opened top-down. Before he could even see the bright glare of the Hoth landscape in the growing space around the opening ramp, Luke felt the icy blast that froze him instantly to the bone. Being from Tatooine, Luke was used to desolate landscapes, but what he saw from the inside the ship was more disheartening than anything he had ever seen in his entire life. White. Absolute white. There was not one blemish on the scene as far as the eye could see. He knew the shuttle he was on was hovering a meter above the snow, not wanting to test the rigidity of the surface and was probably leaving a slight indentations on the immaculate landscape, but they would disappear within seconds after the ship's departure. After it left, Luke would be the only thing unfrozen for many kilometers in any direction. The time for which that stayed true would depend on his determination to survive.

"Normally when we exile someone to a baron world," the man was speaking again, no longer reading a script, "we give them some means of survival whether it be a blaster or a vibroknife. We were told that since you were a Jedi Master, you would not be given anything."

At this point Luke was beyond sarcastic responses and merely nodded stoically. He was wearing a full bantha suit that had been given to him consisting of boots, pants, coat, mittens, and a hat. Without any further instructions he walked down the ramp into the icy surroundings.

"If you are looking for shelter, I believe the old Rebel outpost buildings are located about 15,000 kilometers that way," he said, pointing west. "Of course they are also about 15,000 kilometers that way," he added, pointing east. "Take your pick." With that last snide comment, the ship closed its doors, and lifted up into the sky.

Four days later Luke was sitting in one of the three ice igloos he had made during his exile so far. The structure was a simple dome made by swirling snow around and heating it slightly. The snow would melt and then freeze immediately into ice. Luke had become quit good at the building process and required little Force concentration. One problem with the construction process was that it left no door. Luke often felt like some type of avian waking up every morning, cracking out of his ice egg.

The Jedi's stomach was still grumbling about the meat he had eaten earlier in the day. Luke didn't feel he was going to be sick from it, but its simple presence in his body helped remind him that he was still very hungry.

"What am I doing here, Ben?"

If things went on like this, Luke wouldn't last one month. He was sure this was not how he was supposed to spend the rest of his life, wandering aimlessly about Hoth, teaching the few Force strong people the Republic decided to exile. Luke laughed briefly at this last thought, but only briefly. He had been sure he would either die like Yoda had, old and gray asleep in his bed, or like Ben had, in battle. He didn't know of too many Jedi Masters who had frozen to death while in exile on an uninhabited planet.

Luke figured there had to be something he was supposed to do to get off of this iceball, but he had no idea what it was. The Force was not giving him too many definitive answers. It was definitely telling him not to do some things. When he was in transit to Hoth, he had been fitted with a neckband. Luke could sense some very powerful explosives in the small box on the back of this band. He could easily diffuse the device with the Force, but he was getting danger emotions every time he started prodding at the works of the neck bomb, so he had decided to leave it alone.

Luke wasn't exactly getting positive feedback as to his selected path of travel either, but every time he went north, east, or west, he got negative feelings. It simply took faith, and Luke didn't have a whole lot of that right now. He had had faith in the extinction of the Empire, but had been proven wrong. He had had faith in the stability of the Republic, but had been proven wrong. He had had faith in his own decision-making ability and had been proven wrong. Now he was having a tough time believing he was going to survive this ordeal when there was nothing to back up that train of thought and plenty of evidence to prove it wrong.

Faith might be hard to come by, but sleep was very easy. Luke was exhausted from keeping himself warm, and fell into a deep Force slumber.

Day 8

I have not eaten since day four, and it does not look like I will make it much further. It appears I have been making this diary in vane for I know of no one who will read it nor do I know of no way to extract it from me after I have gone. Regardless, I sincerely doubt anyone will find my body. The nature of this world is one of forgetfulness. The winds and snow cover all and leave no trace of anything's presence.

There are times when I wish to simply stop moving, stop trying, but the Force insists I keep going. To what end I do not know. I have made my peace with the galaxy and am ready to meet my father. In a way, it is better that I go this way. I have been a symbol of change in the galaxy. I ended the Emperor's reign and began again the training of Jedi. Now it seems the universe is ready to push away those changes and settle down into a more stable lifestyle.

I have been forced to admit that with the return of the Jedi, there is also greater risk of trouble. Though the Jedi are provided as symbols of peace and protection, the Dark Side is always a threat. Maybe with the troubles of the Empire gone, the galaxy doesn't feel the protection of Jedi is worth the risk of another Vader. With that being the galaxy's wish, my Academy is destroyed, Leia is out, and I am here.

Of course maybe this new viewpoint of mine has simply been forced upon me by my situation. My mind wants me to make the best of it, and this is what it comes up with. I have not gone down without a fight. I have tried to make contact with Leia every morning when my mind is fresh and my senses alert, but have come up empty. I find it hard to believe that for over a week now, not one of my many friends have come to rescue me. Because of this I realize either Snotzenexer has put enough protection around this place that no one will ever get through, or all of them are in an equivalent situation to my own.

Whatever my final destination, I will continue walking south. Each day I labor to keep a steady pace, sometimes needing rests of several hours before continuing. These past two days have been very disheartening. I have stopped to set up night's camp still within sight of the previous night's igloo. I am only covering a mere kilometer a day and cannot hope to reach the equator. For this reason I have assumed the Force is simply aiming me toward a cave where my body can be found.

***

The winds whipped at his face as the Jedi Master teetered briefly on one foot. The simple action of putting his feet forward and backward had become an adventure as he moved like an infant exploring the new world of balance. The wind was strong, but not near strong enough to cause such clumsy behavior from a man with dexterity capable of blocking blaster bolts. Still Luke trembled on every step, concentrating as hard as his nutrient deficient brain could to keep moving. In the past few hours he had stopped devoting any effort towards keeping his extremities warm, and they had gone numb almost immediately, making it that much harder to control them.

He had fallen twice and labored each time to rise. Now he stumbled forward again, measuring his length in the powdery ground. As his face hit the white snow he felt the Force leave him. It wasn't a Forceless bubble or an ysalamiri field, but Luke had no problem understanding it. It was over. Luke was done. The Force had allowed him to go this far and no further.

Luke still felt the Force in him, but his will power to use it had failed. This was his fated final resting spot. He lay there, for how long he didn't know. It felt like days but was in fact only a few minutes. The Force let him feel the presence of another life and Luke stirred only briefly, wondering if maybe it was not over. He lifted his head a little and was staring at two large hairy feet. Luke crumpled back to the snow, fainting with the knowledge that after he had avoided this fate twice before, he was finally going to be lunch for a wampa ice creature.

***

Luke awoke to warmth. He was unsure what to think. His eyes were still closed and his uncertainty of what he would see if they were opened kept them that way. He wasn't upside-down like the first time he had had a run in with the Hoth yeti. Instead he was sitting comfortably immersed in warmth. Curiosity finally got the best of him and he opened his eyes.

He was in a cave. It was dimly lit and Luke could see signs of civilization all over. There were many different pieces of hand carved furniture, utensils and crafts. There were clothes hanging on hooks and rugs spread on the floor. In a back room Luke thought he could see huge piles of wood and there were several fires going in the cave.

Luke himself was sitting naked in a hole of some sort filled with water and with wooden paneling surrounding the top of the tub. It appeared to be a very crude attempt at a hot tub. The water was unnaturally warm and bubbled occasionally as if it were being heated by a source far beneath it. Luke reached downward with his feet, sliding off of his underwater stone seat, trying to feel the bottom of the tub, but he couldn't find it without submerging his head and he didn't want wet hair on Hoth.

A wet head was certainly dangerous in this cold climate, but as Luke's wet face emerged from the water, he was surprised to find there was no sudden cold chill on his wet cheeks. The temperature in the cave seemed to be a very comfortable 20 degrees Celsius. Whoever lived here must go through great pains to keep this place insulated. Speaking of great pains, as Luke became more aware of his surroundings and the Force made him more alert, he began feeling immense pain from his hands and feet. His extremities were no doubt very frost bitten. Luke decided it would be best to be fully healed as soon as possible and enacted a Jedi healing trance.

***

Noises crept into the Jedi's senses, slowly slipping him out of his comatose state. The sounds came as sharp cracking noises, and Luke rolled his head slowly, slitting his eyelids a little to see the source. A man had his back turned to Luke and was busy carving something in one of the cave walls. Luke flexed his limbs slowly as he emerged from his healing trance. His limbs felt in prime condition, his perfected healing abilities restoring the blistered flesh to its proper form in only an hour or two.

The man across from Luke took a small break in his labors giving Luke a better view of what he was doing. Luke craned is neck out of the tub a little to see the man appeared to be carving a large notch in the wall about a meter off the ground. There was a large indentation underneath the notch that sunk about half a meter into the rock wall at floor level. Luke had no clue what it was for and looked at the man for some kind of clarification. Luke's host was currently staring curiously back at his guest. He had looked over at Luke during his short rest was relieved to see he was finally awake.

The man smiled congenially at Luke but said nothing. He put his carving tool down gently in the notch he had started and walked slowly over to some clothes that were hanging on the wall a few meters from Luke. There was a large animal hide coat with matching pants, a strip of fur that likely acted as a scarf, thick mittens, a hat, and a pair of boots that looked strikingly similar to the wampa feet Luke thought he had seen right before he had fainted in the snow. The man was wearing no more than a simple military shirt and vest with black pants and very worn military boots.

Luke remained silent as the man made his way over to his outdoor clothes. He appeared to be about ten years older than Luke, who himself was pushing fifty. Luke had managed to age rather gracefully with the Force keeping his physique similar to that of a thirty-year-old. This man didn't have the power of every living thing in the universe supporting is aging process, but had managed to remain very fit and trim.

The man displayed his physical prowess quite dramatically when he reached his coat. Without warning, the man turned toward Luke, leaped the distance between them, and leveled a translucent sword at Luke's neck.

"What have you done?" the man asked, his voice surprisingly calm for his actions.

Luke was a trained fighter and had ingrained reactions to such an attack. The Jedi Master sat up straight in his tub and brought his hand up to call for his lightsaber. Over the years that Luke had used his weapon, he had developed a unique attachment to the device that only experienced Jedi can have, with a strength that only masters can achieve. Luke was able to call his lightsaber to him without line of sight and often from over a kilometer away. As strong as that connection was, Luke and his weapon usually had to at least be on the same planet, and most definitely in the same sector, neither of which was the case. For what it was worth, off in a weapon storage room on the Super Star Destroyer Dark Fist, a confiscated lightsaber did rock slightly.

Here on Hoth, the action did nothing but get the odd sword's point pressed a little more securely against Luke's neck. "I asked you a question," the man said poignantly. He tapped Luke's neck collar with his sword. "I don't think you're here on shore leave."

"Treason," Luke replied, realizing this man wanted to know what kind of exiled scum he had rescued.

"Of course it was treason," the man said calmly, "they don't exile murderers. They space them. What did you do?"

"I was forced into killing a palace security guard."

"So why didn't they kill you?"

Luke shrugged his shoulders, honestly not knowing.

"What do you mean 'forced into killing?'"

Luke didn't have the hour or two necessary to explain to the man what had transpired and why he had needed to see Snotzenexer and how the palace guards had actually been former Imperials, but he had to say something. "They over-reacted to me, and had set their weapons to kill instead of stun. It was kill or be killed."

"What forced their over-reaction?"

Luke appreciated the man. He wanted the whole story before he started sharing his meals with a murderer. "I knew the new leader of my government had obtained his position illegally. He knew this, but also knew I had no way to prove any of my claims. I went to confront him and he had his security try to kill me."

The man on the other end of the sword relaxed a little. "More likely he wanted you to kill one of them." Luke was a little startled by this statement. It was of course the truth, but the man had no basis to say it. Luke knew Snotzenexer had no way of insuring the guards could take down a Jedi Master and what this man had said had to be the truth, but this man couldn't know all the details. "There's a towel behind you," he said as he put his sword away. "Your clothes are on the floor next to the bath."

The towel was a long hair animal hide that absorbed the water off his body quite efficiently. He put his clothes back on, deciding to leave his coat and cold-weather pants off for now, testing the environment in the cave. The man ignored Luke and went back to his work. Luke decided to give himself the self-guided tour of the cave. The cave had been built into several different rooms. Right now, the two of them appeared to be in the living quarters. There was the bath, which was a raised stone platform with a hole in the top and wooden paneling to make the platform more comfortable to the bare skin with which it would be in contact.

Luke saw the completed version of what the man was currently working on and realized the man must be carving out a bed for Luke. The finished version of the stone bed was over flowing with fur and animal hides, which no doubt acted as a mattress for the hard bed. Underneath the small cave were the remains of a fire that was probably used to heat the bed before, and maybe during, use.

There was makeshift stone furniture with animal hides covering everything. A little more walking brought Luke into another section of the cave. The Jedi Master was truly amazed at what this man had accomplished. He first examined what appeared to be a kitchen sink. What had once been a protrusion from the cave wall was now hollowed out with a small drain in the bottom. There was a water faucet that consisted of a series of reed pipes, disappearing above to some unseen water source. The drain also had reed tubing that led of into another section of the cave.

Next to the sink was a flat metal plate, underneath which was an often-used fireplace. Next to the range was a stone oven that had firewalls all the way around it. The refrigerator completed the kitchen set-up and consisted of a hollowed out rock with a stone lid and plenty of snow. The kitchen table was more a kin to a bar than a table, but the stone protrusion looked very functional.

Luke followed the sink drain to another room that was aglow with light. Luke looked up at the ice ceiling and then down on the cave floor where various vegetable plants grew. The sink emptied into a very strategically organized irrigation system.

Luke continued wandering around the cave system finding all kinds of interesting items. There was a bow and arrow set in which the bow was crafted out of a rib from an incredibly large beast. Luke found a mirror with a crude metal shaving kit. The blade was remarkably sharp and the dish of animal fat had been whipped into a convincing lather. Luke also found a room that was much colder than the rest of the cave. Three large skins hung from the cave roof to partition this room off from the rest of the cave and insulate it. There were piles of snow to keep the room frigid. The reason for the walk in freezer was obvious when Luke looked at the five large animals hanging from the ceiling.

Perhaps the most surprising thing Luke found was an indoor lake. It was perhaps thirty meters in diameter and Luke could sense it was about four meters deep in its center. The amazing part about it was that it was teeming with fish. Luke could sense about six different species of fish and couldn't even come close to estimating how many total fishes there were in the lake. He could see the lake was supporting a pretty extensive underwater ecosystem with several different kinds of plants.

This man had put a lot of work into this cave and planned on staying a long time. Luke made his way back to the main room and saw the man was calling it quits for now on the second bed and was building a fire in one of the many hearths that decorated the inside of the cave.

Luke didn't really know what say. He had expected the man to quiz him much more extensively than he had. Luke felt out of place, having never been introduced nor formally invited to stay in the cave. Suddenly the man swore and stopped what he was doing. He looked up and around at Luke. "Conversation?" Luke looked a little confused. "You want to talk, don't you?" The man started to chuckle a little. "You see, I've been away from civilization for so long that I've forgotten common courtesy. Please," the man motioned to one of the stone chairs, "have a seat."

Luke had been eyeing up the chair from the start and made his way over to it. The hard stone couldn't even be felt by Luke's heightened senses through the thick furs that covered it. "How long have you been here?" Luke asked.

"In another week or two I'll have been here for 11,000 days. I keep track of the days on one of the walls in here."

"That's about 30 years," Luke said, quite surprised at the information.

"You have to remember that these are Hoth days, not standard Coruscant days, so I have no idea what the conversation factors are, though these seem to be close to 24 hour days."

"Well if you could tell me what was going on in the galaxy when you got here I might be able to get a better guess for you."

The man looked at Luke for a long while. "Are you forgetting how old you are? You probably weren't even born when they sent me here."

"You might be surprised," Luke informed him. "You were exiled by the Empire?"

The man nodded. "The name is Thomas, Thomas Thorin. It used to be Captain Thorin, but now it's just Thomas. I served directly under Grand Moff Tarkin. He had decided to make me his chief military advisor. After a while, we had fallen into a pretty standard routine. He'd ask me what to do, I'd tell him, he'd do something else, and then I'd say, 'See, I told you so.' Then when the Rebellion started, he started giving me incomplete data. His informants would guess as to how many ships the Rebels had and I would predict an easy victory. It would turn out that the information was wrong by a factor of five, and the Empire would barely squeak out a victory, losing a lot of manpower. Tarkin refused to take the blame for the losses, so he piled it on me.

"What got me sent here was the destruction of the Death Star. If you can remember that, my young friend, then you'll know how long I've been here. They come to me and tell me they have an invincible battle station, but it doesn't have any shields. I said nothing is invincible and shields would be nice. They tell me the designers didn't leave enough room in the main power core for a shield generator large enough to protect the station. I said they need to put one in. They tell me they have covered the entire surface with turbo lasers. I tell them that a small fighter craft like the Rebels were using can slip right through the clumsy turbo lasers. They tell me they have hundreds of TIE fighters on board to protect against enemy fighters. I tell them TIE pilots aren't half as good as Rebel pilots. They tell me the station is invincible. I tell them if the station IS invincible then it doesn't need shields. Result: they don't install shields and it gets blown up by a single fighter pilot.

"There are sometimes that I'd like to find that pilot and wring his neck, and other times when I'd like to kiss him. In the end I've decided I really don't care. One way or the other I was going to be proven right. I just had hoped it wouldn't result in exile. I was labeled as a conspirator because I had sabotaged the Death Star by telling them not to put in shields. Shields that could have stopped the single proton torpedo that destroyed it. As a traitor, I ended up here."

Luke tried to hide the smile that had been spreading across his face when he realized where the story was headed. It wasn't necessarily funny, but it simply proved how truly small the infinitely vast universe was. "That was about thirty years ago," Luke agreed, remembering the time he spoke of well. "My name is Luke Skywalker; I was involved with the Rebellion." Luke decided to throw that information out at him, pretty sure that he wasn't going to take revenge.

Thomas shook his head slowly. "I don't recognize the name, but don't worry, I hold no animosity against the Alliance. Heck, I've often hypothesized what I would have done if I hadn't been exiled, and I'm pretty sure I would have joined you guys eventually."

"Your not just saying that because you know I won't join your side, are you?"

"Clever," Thomas laughed, "no, I have no love for the Empire. I've spent the last 30 years of my life cursing both Vader and the Emperor. How did that come out by the way?"

"We won. Darth Vader and the Emperor were killed and the Empire was overthrown. The Rebellion formed a new government called the New Republic, which is now just called the Republic."

"So it's this Republic that has just gained a new leader that you don't like?"

"Snotzenexer is the new president of the Republic. He was an admiral in the Imperial navy up till about six weeks ago when he began to make his bid for power. He claims to be on the level but he and his female admiral showed me just enough evidence to convince me they were up to something crooked. Now I know they were just tempting me to try to act against them so I would end up here."

Thomas stared for a long while at look, is mind turning over everything he'd heard. "Okay, I give up. Who are you? You have to be something special to be exiled and not killed. You were lured into the kind of trap that only very dangerous people are ever put in. You claim to have been around during the Rebellion but don't look a day over thirty. To top it off, you've survived who knows how many days out there in the cold wearing barely nothing and suffering only a little frostbite, which has somehow miraculously healed. Not to mention you constructed some pretty neat igloos along your trip. You're a Jedi, aren't you?"

"You want proof, or is a simple 'yes' good enough."

"You must have been a pretty big player in the galaxy up till now. How come no one has come to rescue you yet?"

"You've got me, Thomas. I figured any number of five to ten different people would have shown up with in the first two days, but I've neither felt nor seen anything. Snotzenexer must have put a tight lid on this system."

"It wouldn't be too hard to do," Thomas pointed out. "With the location of the sun and the asteroid belt, there are only about three different places one can enter this system. All you have to do is put and interdictor cruiser and Star Destroyer at each one of those spots under drone control, and we are effectively separated from the outside world."

"I don't know this system very well, so I have no idea."

"I didn't know this system very well either, but 30 years of looking into the sky has told me a lot. There are gaps in the asteroid field, but you'd have to be crazy to try and get through it."

Luke smiled a little. "Some of my friends can be counted as a little crazy. One in particular has already traversed the asteroid field running from Imperials about 28 years ago."

The conversation fell quite for a while. "So how did you guys pull it off against the Empire?"

"To be perfectly honest, my friends and I were the prime movers. It all involved getting premium information and having the Emperor under-estimate our abilities. One fighter took out the first Death Star,-"

"First Death Star," Thomas interrupted, "they made another one?" Luke nodded. "I've always wondered how that fighter pilot was able to make the critical shot. I looked at the blueprints and the exhaust port wasn't very big."

"It wasn't that easy of a shot, to be honest with you."

Thomas stared blankly at Luke for a fraction of a second and then realization dawned on him. "I'm sorry, but the cold has made me slow. You're not trying to tell me you were that pilot?"

Luke nodded. "You'll also find out I'm the one who killed Vader and the Emperor. I don't mean to brag, but since I have played such an enormous role in galactic history in the past thirty years is probably why I'm stuck here while Snotzenexer tries to write his own history."

"How is it you weren't discovered during the Jedi Purge?"

"I was only a kid and without the knowledge of the Force or what I was capable of." Luke paused a moment while considering something Thomas had said earlier. "You said that I must be someone important in order to be exiled here. Does that mean you are someone of equal importance?"

Thomas shrugged. "I guess not. I don't think I was exiled as much as I was simply put in cold storage."

"Like Thrawn," Luke said.

"Exactly like Thrawn," Thomas agreed, happy to finally hear a name he recognized. "Send one on a scouting mission to uncharted space, send the other to Hoth. There were two of us that the Emperor was grooming specially for command, but he couldn't get us through the ranks of the military fast enough to keep us from bumping heads with our superiors. I always had the feeling he liked Thrawn better, which is probably why he got the less severe exile. I was probably a little too controversial for his taste. So Thrawn came out of hiding, did he?"

"Yes," Luke replied. "He nearly cost us everything. He was a tactical genius beyond anything we had ever faced before. Snotzenexer is a lot like him, though he approached the take over of the Republic in a different method. Thrawn tried to defeat us militarily, Snotzenexer attacked us financially, politically, and socially."

"Sounds like quite a character. I'd like to meet him sometime."

"I'd love to introduce you to him, which would of course mean that we had gotten off this rock. What we really need now is someone to out-think the guy. He has the backing of the entire galaxy, and I am scared they have no idea what his real agenda is."

"Why don't you tell me about it over supper. I'm sure we'll find a way off this rock sooner or later."

Chapter 8 "Testing the Limits"

Mara was hardly surprised to see that Chewie and Ra'tok had suddenly become inseparable, but she was a little surprised to find that one of their common interests was ship repair. The two furry friends were busy tinkering away in the Millennium Falcon when Mara approached the crude tech shed that had been set up on the forest moon. Her ship was parked just outside the facility, allowing easy enough access to most of the tools she'd need to do what she wanted.

She wanted to remove the tracking device from her hull, but she needed to do so in the way that Snotzenexer would expect her to. If you simply detached the device from a ship's hull, it would shut down, and the person on the other end of the homing beacon would know immediately what had happened. There was an electromagnetic seal made between the device and the ship that had to be maintained to keep the tracking device functioning.

Removing the device from the ship also meant removing part of the ship. It was possible to shave a very small sliver of the hull off with a vibro tool, and then fill in the imperfection with molten metal. The procedure had to be done very carefully in order to maintain uniform shield strength around the ship, and, if the job was done poorly, the hull integrity would go down.

Mara spent the better part of the next hour scouring her ship for the device, remembering it was near the engine compartment. She had sworn she had covered every inch of the ship, but still couldn't find it. She found Ra'tok wedged halfway into the Falcon's hyperdrive with Chewie rambling on about something.

"Excuse me, Ra'tok," Mara said, drawing the Defel away from his work. "Have you looked for the tracking device on my ship yet?"

"Yes, Mara. Chewbacca and I have removed it already."

"You what?!" Mara screamed. "You carved up my ship without my permission. You had no right to touch my ship, much less remove the device."

She could hear Chewie say something that sounded a little too close to laughter for Mara's liking. Ra'tok echoed the laughter with his own barking. He responded to the Wookiee in his own language before turning to Mara. "Chewie and I both agree that if you can find the spot on your ship where the device was, you may take any part of the Falcon apart that you wish." Chewie barked something. "Except the hyperdrive," Ra'tok added the translation.

Mara knew she wouldn't find it. There was no way Chewie would allow her to dismantle the Falcon, especially since it wasn't even his. Still, there might be a way to find the spot on the ship, and make good on their bet. "You're on," she responded and turned to storm out of the Falcon.

Two hours later, Mara was down to one last method to find the detachment section. She was a little mad she had kept her hull so clean over the years. It would have been real easy to spot a clean patch of durasteel on the hull. Instead she had been forced to use a laser planer, a hull micrometer, and a vellen former and still hadn't found the spot. Now she was sitting in her cockpit having just finished testing her shields for some frequency modulation. She had magnified the spectrum output until she was noticing the imperfections in the actual durasteel structure, but couldn't locate any structural integrity deficiencies. She had long ago admitted she wouldn't have been able to do a better job, but now it was a matter of pride. She did have one more technique available, the only problem was it admitted to Chewie and Ra'tok that there were no imperfections.

Mara left the ship, walked to the rear, placed her hand on the hull, and closed her eyes. She could feel the metal's warmth through the Force. The atomic structure of the hull was laid out before her. It was a solid crystalline structure. As she began probing a little deeper she noticed some brittle sections where she had removed carbon scoring from Imperial turbo lasers. There were also inner tough areas known as hyperspace hardening sections. This was a result of a slightly miscalibrated inertia damper. Finally, she found what she wanted. There was a very fresh patch of durasteel with no imperfections at all. It was in an area that had been carbon scored repeatedly, but its crystalline structure was perfect.

Mara opened her eyes and looked at the patch. There were no possible flaws in the work, but Mara had a score to settle. "Chewie! Ra'tok! Get out here!"

The two mechanics made their way out of the Falcon in response to the beacon call. They both had grins on their faces, and Mara knew they had been talking about her. "What could ever be the problem, Mara?" Ra'tok asked in a melodic voice that was quickly becoming annoying.

"This is the problem," she said, pointing the spot she knew to be the former location of the tracking device. "You call this good work? There's no way Han would let you touch his ship if he knew this was the kind of work you two were capable of."

"Could you show us what is wrong with it, Mara?" Ra'tok asked pleasantly.

"Pish," Mara said, "it's obvious, isn't it. This whole section is bad."

Neither Chewie nor Ra'tok said anything. They both looked at Mara expectantly, wondering how far this game was going to be played out. Finally Chewie said something to Ra'tok that sounded more like the Defel's barking than the usual Wookiee roar. The Defel responded in like manner, and both laughed. "Well," Mara asked, "do I get my choice at the Falcon's equipment or not?"

"What is your wish?" Ra'tok asked.

Mara turned to Chewie, her face suddenly serious. "Do you still have the cloaking device Lando installed for the fight at Danzig 359?"

Chewie thought for a moment and then responded in an uncertain tone. The three of them walked over to the Falcon while Ra'tok translated for Chewie. "Han had removed the device shortly after the battle at Danzig because it was interfering with some of his modifications and he couldn't find an out of the way place to attach it."

They walked up the ramp and Chewie led them to one of the equipment storage cells in the back of the ship. There nestled amongst a lot of other clutter was the torpedo shaped device in question. "You helped Han remove it, right?" Chewie nodded. "Then you know how it works, right?" Chewie paused and then looked at Mara with questionable eyes. "Well, you can at least try to help me put it on my ship. I have an idea to get Luke off of Hoth, and I need your help."

Chewie grunted an affirmative, and he and Ra'tok lifted the heavy device up and carried it to Mara's ship. The rest of that day was spent installing the device on Mara's ship.

***

Dawn found Leia and Mara eating breakfast across from each other. The Academy had never been a place for exotic cuisine, but now in its state of disrepair, the food was even worse. Mara didn't feel right complaining about a free meal, but she could tell from Leia's expression this meal didn't quite hold up to Coruscant Palace standards.

"I should have Threepio do something about this," Leia finally said, stirring the eggs around her plate so they would at least look eaten. "He's a pretty good cook."

Mara hid her smile in a glass of fruit juice that was acceptable. "How are you feeling, this morning?"

Leia smiled half-heartedly. "Besides the indigestion I'm going to have later on today, I feel a lot better, thanks."

Mara couldn't think of anything intelligent to say at the moment and waited before asking her next question. "I didn't want to ask yesterday, but how is Jaina?"

Leia didn't even appear to struggle for emotional control before replying. "I can't feel her either, but it is different. When it happened, I remember feeling Jacen's presence simply torn away from the Force. Jaina's departure wasn't nearly that violent. I guess the best way I can explain it is that Jacen is gone, but Jaina is only hiding."

"So we're talking about some kind of accident in which Jaina could have been only injured?" Mara asked, not wanting to say that Jacen had died.

Leia shrugged her shoulders. "I don't honestly know, and I don't want to talk about it until I have more information."

Mara accepted the response, realizing Leia had made a lot of progress from yesterday, but was still a long way from being healed. "Have you been able to get in contact with Luke?"

"Not yet, I'm afraid. I can't seem to get my head clear enough to send or receive a strong signal. Don't worry, I'll get through. I want to talk to him as much as you do, but it might not be for a while. I do have confidence he is all right, though. If he were hurt or dying, I'm sure I'd be able to tell."

"I was thinking the same thing. I'd be able to sense him leaving the Force plane. Besides, he's a Jedi Master, I'm sure he'll be all right. But unless he can build a ship out of ice, he'll be there for a while, and we are going to need him if we want to get rid of Snotzenexer."

Both women pushed their plates toward the serving droid, hoping it would be able to see that the five bites of food each woman had taken constituted a finished breakfast. "Has Anakin contacted you yet?" Leia asked.

Mara shook her head. "I told the officer I spoke to that it was urgent, and he said he would pass it along. I kind of figured he would call yesterday, but I have no idea what kind of time schedule they're on. I'll give him the rest of the day."

Both of them got up and were about to part company when Mara stopped Leia with a hand gesture. "One last question, do you know where they have put all the scrapped Imperial craft pieces?"

"Not personally, no, but I can direct you to someone who does."

***

The next two days were very uneventful. Mara and Ra'tok spent their time rooting through the scrap that had been left behind by the Empire. Ra'tok didn't have a clue what Mara was after, but he knew she had a plan and when she thought it necessary, she would tell him what it was. As it was, they practically had enough parts to build their own ship. They had gathered a fusion reactor, several laser cannons, batteries, plenty of control systems, hydraulics, an atmospheric repulser, and about fifty tons of scrap hulls.

They had enough stuff to build a ship, but it would never fly. Each one of the pieces was utterly destroyed. Ra'tok was loosing patients with his new partner, but also realized that if he and Mara were to be partners, she would be the captain and he the copilot. Maybe this was a test to see how well he followed orders.

Anakin still had not responded to Mara's initial call, and she placed another one. Mara needed Anakin's help, but she didn't need it right now. The next part of the plan could happen without him. "Ra'tok," Mara said, pulling the Defel away from a conversation he was having with Chewie, "we need to make a little trip."

"What for?"

"It's time to give Snotzenexer a little more information."

Ra'tok smiled cunningly. "Where to?"

"We're going to pay Hoth a visit."

***

Mara had looked at the space charts considerably the last day she had been on Yavin IV, and she was pretty sure how Snotzenexer would have the system bottled up. He would need three, maybe four interdictor cruisers to cover all the space lanes toward the planet. The asteroid field in the system created a huge natural interdiction field and limited the possible entry points. Hoth was the six planet in orbit, the inner five playing little to no role in hyperspace travel. The seventh planet in the system was a gas giant that was twice as dense as Yavin. It had an orbit perpendicular to that of the asteroid field and had an incredibly slow orbital cycle. In its current position, it would block incoming hyperspace travel to Hoth from its direction for another two years.

With all the natural interdiction devices, there were only three other lanes open. One lane was particularly large and it might be possible to slip by if the Empire only used one interdictor cruiser, but this probably wasn't the case.

The trip to Hoth took three days, and Mara had some very interesting conversations with her new friend. She also had the opportunity to confirm many of her suspicions as to the Defel's history. On the third day they popped out of hyperspace right on schedule. Mara had planned the jump to take them out of hyperspace still a ways away from the possible Imperial ships.

"Sensors indicate an Imperial Class Star Destroyer and two interdiction cruisers dead ahead," Ra'tok reported.

"Let's see what they do," Mara said as she punched the throttle forward. They came in hard at the Star Destroyers and got a response almost immediately.

"Unidentified ship, you are about to enter restricted space. Cease you present course or prepare to be fired upon."

Mara's ship decided not to cease. "Mara," Ra'tok pointed out calmly, "that was a recording. The Star Destroyer is under drone control. You won't be able to reason with it."

Mara didn't say anything but held the course true. With the recorded message, they had been given a transmission including the area of restricted space. Mara watched intently as her ship, represented by a blinking red dot, made its way closer and closer toward the imaginary line. Three more recorded messages came her way, none of which Mara paid any attention to.

Just as her ship entered the field, she made a drastic turn, just avoiding getting blown out of the sky by six banks of turbo lasers. She stayed on the wrong side of the line as her dive had put her out of range of the ship's weapon sensors. The Star Destroyer had limited logic circuits and could only do what it was programmed to do. Mara's ship was on the wrong side of the line so it needed to be shot. It was out of range to be shot, so it had to be chased.

An entire squadron of TIE fighters went in pursuit of the Jade's Fire. Mara noticed the TIE's weren't actually chasing her, but were following an intercept course between her and Hoth, preventing even the fastest of ships from out running the patrol. Drone TIE pilots had become a lot better in recent years, but next to a good pilot like Mara, they were still only portable lasers. At the same time, with a whole squadron after Mara, she didn't stand much of a chance. She also knew that if she shot one down, she would no longer be able to simply escape the system, but would be hunted down by the Star Destroyer's entire arsenal.

Mara had one more test for the defenses and made a dash for the fringe of the asteroid field. Ra'tok gave Mara a very worried glance, but remained quiet. Mara laughed to herself - if he only knew what the actual rescue plan was. The TIE fighters gave pursuit but were cautious about entering the asteroid. Mara was also cautious, not quite as daring (i.e. stupid) as Han had been.

Feeling she had given the defenses enough of a test to convince Snotzenexer, she felt it was time to leave. Mara crossed the invisible line back into unrestricted space and was pleased to see that the TIE's didn't give chase. Before leaving the system, Mara tried briefly to contact Luke. The two of them didn't have a fraction of the connection that she had had with the Emperor, but they were capable of simple communication at close distances. This unfortunately was not a close distance. She did feel his presence however, and she had the feeling that he was warm and safe. If you could manage to stay warm on Hoth, you had a pretty good chance of staying alive. Mara jumped back into hyperspace feeling confident Luke would be okay until they came for him.

***

"Hello, Master Streen," Mara said to the view screen on her ship, "has Anakin Solo returned any of my calls?"

"I'm afraid not Mara," the old Master replied. "It is not unusual for him to become so wrapped up in a project that he does not function properly socially. But it has been over a week since you have first tried to contact him, and unless there is a conscious effort keeping the message from him, I see no reason why he should be unresponsive."

That was something she hadn't thought of. It is very possible Snotzenexer had a hold on the system and was controlling the information. "Has Leia been able to get in contact with him?"

"I'm afraid Anakin has a habit of putting up huge mental barriers with the Force. His incredible abilities open much more of the incessant Force chatter to him, and he has found it necessary to shut it down. He is also very paranoid about the Dark Side and finds it necessary to control everything that goes through his mind. This means he also shuts out the rest of us, including his family."

"You mentioned there are other Jedi with him, helping him with the planetary clean-up. Have you tried contacting any of them?"

"They are only students, and not strong enough in the Force to reach at this great of a distance."

"Thank you for your help, Master Streen. Can you tell Leia that before I come back to the Academy, I'm going to swing by the Denorid system to see if I can find out what's going on."

"I will do that, Mara Jade. May the Force be with you."

Mara closed her end of the transmission and turned to find Ra'tok close behind her pretending to fiddle with the sensor array. He had obviously been listening to the conversation and didn't waste time engaging Mara in a discussion about it as soon as she turned. "Who is this Anakin Solo that you wish to speak with him so badly?"

"He is only the strongest Force user in the galaxy right now," Mara answered directly. "He has some very special abilities, one of which is paramount to the rescue of Skywalker. Of course if you have your own plan for rescue, I'd love to hear it."

Ra'tok though for a little bit. "The defense system in place seemed very effective. You would need about eight or nine different ships in order to keep all of the defense ships occupied before you could hope to slip by unnoticed, and even then you would loose at least half of those ships. I don't know if the rescue of any one man is worth the death of many others."

"I agree," Mara replied. "My method involves one ship and two people. Unfortunately one of those people is stuck in the Denorid system right now."

"And who is the other person?"

"Ideally, I'd like to use the person we are rescuing, but I will have to make do with what I have."

"Namely you," Ra'tok answered his own question.

"What can I say, it's my ship."

Mara needed to stay in hyperspace a little longer in order to get a straight shot at the Denorid system. When that space lane opened up, she dropped out of hyperspace, calculated the new course, and the ship once again flashed into light-speed.

***

Victor was sitting in a simulator, his hangover from the morning before a distant memory. "The person you will be fighting against has never lost," Ward said, standing outside the simulator. "He usually decides to fly exactly what the challenger chooses, so if you feel it is more important for you to fight against a certain fighter than to fly with one, you might want to choose your craft accordingly."

"What crafts do I have to choose from?"

"Any of the Republic ships are at your disposal. The most popular choice has been the X-wing."

"How about the A-wing?"

Ward nodded, "we have that ship."

"That's what I want," Victor said confidently.

Ward wasn't too happy with the choice. He knew that Jon's strengths lay in his maneuverability and an A-wing would only augment that ability. "Are you sure?"

"You said I get to choose what I want to fly in, right? I want to use an A-wing, and I don't care what he chooses."

Ward shrugged in acceptance, not really having the authority to force him to use any particular type of ship. He tapped his communicator, relaying the information to the programmer who controlled the contest and to his admiral.

On the other side of the simulator, several decks away, Sanson stood next to the simulator in which Jon was seated waiting for his next victim. "He's chosen an A-wing," Sanson informed him.

Jon was surprised by the choice. The E-wing was by far the best ship in this simulator, followed by the B-wing. The X-wing and Y-wing were probably next, excelling in maneuverability and firepower respectively. The A-wing was at the bottom of the list as far as Jon was concerned. It was definitely the quickest ship, but that was the only positive feature in its arsenal. It had only two laser canons with very little energy reserve, its shields were adequate under similar fire, but beneath the guns of a Y- or B-wing, the shields wouldn't last three hits.

Jon briefly thought about choosing the E-wing or Y-wing, wanting to end this disturbance in his normal morning routine, but he had to stay in form. "I guess you should give me an A-wing too."

Sanson sighed. She had wanted Jon to pick one of the better ships also, not thinking this new recruit would fair any better than anyone else had. Ward seemed to think rather highly of him, but Ward hadn't lasted two minutes against Jon when he had fought, so his idea of good was a little tainted in Sanson's mind.

The two pilots faced each other, five hundred klicks apart. Jon was wondering if his opponent was going to try and get a missile lock on him like his last challenger had. Victor didn't try to get a missile lock; instead he simply flew toward Jon at top speed, emptying his laser batteries in a long distance barrage that actually came close to nailing Jon a couple times.

The tall pilot didn't return fire but merely punched his engines also, closing the distance between the two fighters at an incredible rate. The game of chicken might have ended the contest in a draw if Jon hadn't loosed one of his concussion missiles when the two crafts were only two kilometers apart. Victor had to react quickly, not having been warned by a missile lock of any kind before the launch of the projectile. He hadn't planned on flinching, figuring a draw with an undefeated opponent was acceptable to him, while it probably wouldn't be to his adversary. Now he was going to have to flinch first, or would he. The missile was fired with out a lock, meaning it would continue strait ahead without zeroing in on him. If the ships were still aligned perfectly, he would only have to elevate himself a meter and the projectile would pass harmlessly below him.

In the few seconds left before a collision, Jon saw his opponent rise a meter and knew the philosophy behind such a move. The two ships were still on a collision course, and Jon was certain this new recruit wouldn't flinch. With the other A-wing above him, the quickest escape route was down. Jon pushed his flight stick forward, sending his simulated craft into a steep dive.

Victor knew his opponent had only one means of escape, and went into a dive also a split second after Jon's A-wing disappeared from view. Victor's batteries had recharged somewhat since his opening volley, and he loosed a few shots at Jon's diving ship, which was now ahead of him. Two of the five shots hit the underside of the A-wing before Victor's batteries were dry again.

Jon flipped over and swung up again before reversing his flight path and turning down again, effectively loosing his tail. Any delusions he had about his adversary were gone now, and he prepared himself for a true test.

Victor tried to stay with the elusive A-wing but couldn't mange it and looped out to try to reacquire. The two ships flew toward each other again, not directly head-on, but at skewed angles. Jon began to put his craft into a spin and dove down suddenly, not an expected move because Victor could merely mimic it and pick him up from behind.

Victor did dive, and punched his accelerator to catch his quick opponent. Jon had dove and gone into a full reverse, allowing him to slow considerably. Victor shot right past him and Jon unloaded with a full two-second burst of fire at the top of the exposed A-wing. Victor lost all shields momentarily and had to divert weapon power to shields while trying to hold off his pursuer.

Victor tried loops and dives; he pulled a "Dry Man's Corner" and a "Torrid Hook," neither of which shook Jon in the least. Victor soon realized his opponent knew all the text book moves, and he would have to pull something original. Victor went into a shallow dive, fired a concussion missile, and then went into a steep climb. Jon wavered for a second, wondering where the missile was headed, and then found that in his split second of hesitation, his prey had eluded him.

Jon quickly looped down and around, trying to make sure his adversary wasn't coming up on his backside. Instead he found Victor was simply continuing up. Jon looked at his range indicator and saw his opponent was putting an awfully big distance between them. The tall pilot punched his accelerators, wondering what this elusive foe was up to. Jon spared nothing to his engines, pulling a little energy from his fully powered shields in the process. He wanted to jump on top of Victor before he had a chance to realize Jon had closed the gap.

Victor pulled out of the climb and leveled off a little, and prepared to do what looked like a "Falcon Roll." It was a move that made it look like you were going to climb, when you were actually going to dive. A ship performing a "Falcon Roll" would begin to climb and then flip suddenly over and turn the climb into a dive. It was usually used to loose close tails or to direct an enemy into another allies' sights. Jon knew its weakness though. If you got above the craft performing the maneuver, you had its vulnerable underside as a target. Jon continued his climb, and began to pull out, over shooting the level at which Victor had pulled out.

At that moment, Sanson understood everything. She had been watching these past few seconds with a little wonderment. The missile Victor had fired before his rapid climb had made no sense at all until now.

Jon's ship suddenly stopped completely. The young pilot was bewildered. He had flown in enough atmospheric planes to know what a stall was. The maneuver he was pulling, a sharp climb into an inverted bank might cause some jets to stall, but not a zero-g fighter. He quickly checked his controls and saw nothing was in the red. He was still inching forward slightly, but his upward climb had suddenly and violently stopped.

Jon immediately thought of an overheated engine, after all, he had put everything into his climb to catch his opponent, but even if his engine stalled, his momentum should have allowed him to keep going. It was like he had just run into a wall.

Jon still wasn't sure what had happened when Victor continued his dive and looped up and underneath the hampered craft. He unloaded his laser batteries into the prone craft and loosed two of his remaining three missiles. That was more than enough to end Jon's game, giving him the first defeat of his professional career.

Jon was shell-shocked. He was convinced it had been a glitch in the game. Something had made his ship break down unnaturally. The VR helmet came off his head slowly, as he dreaded facing Sanson. Sanson was all smiles as the tall pilot unfolded himself from the simulator. "That is one clever pilot."

Jon thought Sanson appeared to know what had happened. "What?" Jon asked simply, throwing his hands up to his shoulders.

"He used the computer's memory limitations against you." Jon gave the admiral a puzzled look, meaning he still didn't know what she was talking about. "He fired that missile down and then climbed up, stretching the amount of space the computer had to keep track of. After ten seconds, the computer disregards any foreign object that is outside of a certain range, but inside of ten seconds, the computer keeps track of everything. The simulator has a set range - a volume in which you can fight. It doesn't have the memory capabilities to operate outside that volume.

"Your opponent got you to race and follow him and then pulled a maneuver that he knew would send you even further toward the edge of the volume. Another second longer and the computer would deleted the missile he had fired, figuring it to be unimportant. He had to do what he did as fast as he did, or it wouldn't have worked. He simply made you run into the edge of reality, and while you were pondering what was going on, he blew you apart."

"That isn't fair and you know it," Jon bit back.

"How so?" she responded. "He understood the environment better than you. It is no different than if you were fighting in the dessert and he used a mirage to beat you, or if you were fighting in an asteroid field and he used debris do beat you. He took advantage of your lack of knowledge and beat you with it." Sanson smiled at the defeated ace. "Don't worry, you'll fight again, and I'm sure it won't end from a computer technicality."

Chapter 9 "Resignation Accepted"

The fourth Republic team to assist with the evacuation of the Denorid system arrived without warning. Wedge didn't remember being told another team of ships was coming, but he was glad they were here. He was glad, that was, until he saw what the ships were. There were four Imperial class Star Destroyers, seven Escort Carriers, and several smaller ships that Wedge couldn't make out through the view screen.

It took several tense moments before it was determined these were friendlies and were here to help. "Sir," one of Wedge's officers interrupted his thoughts by calling him over to the com station. "This new fleet is in the command of a Commander Pearson, and he wishes to speak to you."

"Put him on," Wedge told the young officer.

"No, sir, he wants to talk with you privately. He has sent a shuttle to us requesting you join him on his ship."

Wedge thought for a moment. The Republic had a few Star Destroyers in service, but none of them were in near as good a shape as the four ships that hovered in space a few thousand kilometers away from him. They had the correct Republic identification codes and though they out gunned the existing Republic aid team, they had not opened fire. Something drastic must have happened while he had been away for the Republic to acquire these ships. Besides the new ships, Wedge had never heard of a Commander Pearson.

"Tell the shuttle pilot I will be with him shortly." The officer received and transferred the information as Wedge left his bridge. There was probably a very good reason for this, there was always a good reason for everything. The important question was whether it was an acceptable reason.

Wedge stopped off in his quarters and got a holdout blaster from his belongings. He thought it would be bad taste if Commander Pearson's men frisked him when he boarded the Star Destroyer, so he would probably be able to slip the weapon past security. He had no intention of using it, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

The pilot was waiting in the main hangar bay of the cruiser, standing next to his Imperial shuttle. "Admiral Antilles, I'm glad you were able to make yourself available. I know you must be very busy during this mission."

Wedge nodded without saying anything as he boarded the shuttle. The pilot was respectful enough, saluting properly and letting the admiral board first. Wedge could detect no deceit in the pilot's actions. High-ranking officials traveled to a plethora of secret meetings, often not knowing more than their chauffeurs did. The key to remaining aloof in the eyes of the lower ranked officers was to pretend to know more than they did. For this reason Wedge did not initiate any inquiries as to what this meeting was for, and since his pilot asked no questions either, the short flight to the huge Star Destroyer was also a quiet one.

***

Commander Pearson sat in his office, patiently awaiting Wedge's arrival. The security system on the Star Destroyer had detected the hide out blaster that Wedge was carrying immediately, but Pearson had told his officers before Wedge had come aboard the Republic admiral was not to be disarmed.

Pearson had never in his wildest dream thought this plan would work. He had served with and under Snotzenexer for his entire career and knew of his obvious intellect, but that still didn't account for pulling off the impossible. The transfer of power that had occurred was all too sudden, yet smooth. Simply by convincing the senate the problems of the past had not been fully removed with Leia's deposition and the entire old system needed to be removed, Snotzenexer had been able to systematically remove all of the potentially troublesome people from high ranking positions. These replacements were not always members of Snotzenexer's Imperial staff (that would be too obvious) but they were always people nostalgic for the old ways.

Wedge Antilles had been an easy choice for the senate. Any potential problems that might have arisen from the fact he was the top man in the Republic's military, disappeared when the simple fact that he had been conspiring with Leia throughout the Denorid crises was brought forward. The Republic was not at war, and therefore the removal of its top Admiral would not be detrimental. Besides, Wedge was old, not old for an Admiral, but old for someone who had started his military career some 30 years ago. He had fought through every battle and had led the good side to victory each time. Now that the war was over, it was decided he should retire.

A light blinked on Pearson's desk, notifying him that Wedge was at his door. "Come in." The door slid aside, revealing Wedge flanked by two flight officers. "Please come in, Admiral."

Wedge hesitated briefly, his eyes searching the small office as inconspicuously as possible, though the caution seemed blatantly obvious to Pearson. "I assure you this is no trap, Admiral." The commander's words did little to reassure Wedge, but having reached a conclusion in agreement to the statement, he entered the room. The two officers stayed behind him, and were removed from the party of four when the door closed behind the Admiral.

Pearson rose from behind his desk. "Please, take a seat, Admiral."

Wedge thought briefly about standing to show his defiance - but, defiance of what? he thought. He took a chair two meters in front of the desk. "I'm sure you're deathly curious as to what this is all about, and I'm glad to say I'm here to tell you. Would you like something to drink?"

The offer startled Wedge slightly, and he shook his head negatively, still not uttering a word since he had entered the office. "I'm sorry," Pearson said, rising again from his chair. "I'm still on Coruscant time." The commander walked over to a small kitchenette in the corner and began to pour two cups of stimsoline. Despite Wedge's refusal of the drink offer, Pearson brought the second cup over to the seated admiral and placed it on a small end table. "I believe it's still six in the morning over there."

"Seven-sixteen," Wedge spoke for the first time, not bothering to look at his chrono while correcting the commander. His tone was unemotional, lacking any concern or care for Pearson's professed tired state.

"Yes," Pearson said, sipping his drink, "that's probably right. Seven-sixteen. That sounds about right." Silence existed for the next few moments as Pearson sipped at his drink and Wedge allowed his to steam away on the table. Snotzenexer had explained to Pearson exactly how to conduct this meeting, and either the commander was doing a poor acting job or the admiral was made of more mettle than Snotzenexer had predicted. Having never known Snotzenexer to be wrong, Pearson correctly identified himself as the problem and hurried to the chase.

"The Republic has undergone a change of command. President Organa-Solo has been removed from office over this whole situation." Pearson waved his arm toward a window, indicating the Denorid system. "President Snotzenexer has replaced her as president. He was president of the Varion Imperial Bank and . . ."

Whatever Commander Pearson said next wasn't heard, as Wedge was lost in thought. That name sounded incredibly familiar. Luke - Wedge thought - it had something to do with something Luke had told him. That day on Coruscant, looking through the battle records of the Danzig encounter. Snotzenexer had been the commander who had led the attack at Yavin IV, and had been the one who had escaped from both Danzig 359 and Hastrin.

Wedge looked at the commander sitting in front of him, spewing out the resent history of the government. It was no doubt important information, but he could pull it all up after the meeting by contacting news sources back on Coruscant. Even if he had wanted to listen to what was being said, Wedge's mind was racing so fast that he could only pay attention to his thoughts.

There were two possibilities. One was this Snotzenexer had nothing to do with the Empire and he had indeed been the bank president that he claimed, or he was a former Imperial who had acted directly against the Republic as recently as two months ago. If the first possibility were true, that would mean Luke had been wrong.

Luke was not the smartest person Wedge knew. Wedge even considered himself to be the Jedi's intellectual superior. Luke was not a good investigator or a wealth of information. But if one thing was true about him, he was probably the least misinformed person in the galaxy. The Jedi Master had a Force augmented sixth sense that never lied. He not only had hunches and guesses about the present that were never wrong, he could predict the future with incredible accuracy. If Luke had a conviction that this Snotzenexer was an enemy, Wedge would be the first to agree with him.

" . . .Even Ackbar and Iblis have resigned their positions as military advisors and returned to their home worlds to live a comfortable life in retirement. Now they understand it is a big step to you, the head of the fleet, to simply resign cold bantha, but the senate feels it is important you return to Coruscant at once so you can judge the situation for yourself. As it is, there are a few senators - quite a few, actually - that feel you should be removed from your position simply because of your role in this situation." Again Pearson motioned to the Denorid system.

Wedge nodded, pretending to be absorbing everything that had been said and pondering it. It probably wasn't all that far from the truth. Wedge's mind was working furiously. The entire rescue operation that was taking place here had been kept in the dark. Something as big as a leadership change in the government would have definitely been reported to all reaches of the Republic. Someone was controlling the information and doing a stangin' good job of it.

What Wedge hadn't been told, he needed to figure out. Luke had gone out after Snotzenexer, and now this Snotzenexer was President of the Republic, which meant Luke had failed. This meant Snotzenexer had his wits about him. Leia knew where Wedge was, yet she hadn't contacted him. This meant Leia was in some way detained, possibly in trouble. With Leia went Han and Chewie. Also if this Snotzenexer had defeated Luke it was possible he was also indisposed.

"So you want me to resign my position?" Wedge responded, sounding deflated.

"No, not quite," Pearson corrected. "The senate just wants you to quite your position here in the Denorid system and return to Coruscant. I doubt any charges will be brought against you. After the Skywalker incident, I don't think anyone wants to deal with another trial."

"The Skywalker incident?" Wedge asked, trying to sound as detached as possible.

"You haven't heard?" Pearson asked rhetorically. "The Jedi Master was convicted of treason and exiled."

The rest of the meeting was just a blur in Wedge's memory. Somehow he had managed to end the meeting professionally, handing over command of the relief efforts to Commander Pearson. Wedge was in a turbo lift bringing him to the shuttle that would take him back to his command ship. He had been given three hours to gather his stuff and communicate to all of the rescue patrols that there was going to be a change of leadership here in the Denorid system. At the end of that time a shuttle would bring him back to Coruscant.

There was no way Wedge was going to get on that shuttle. Now, more than ever, he needed to check out those asteroids that had missed the planets. If Snotzenexer had planned to take over the government, he would need something like this to stir up the dissent in the senate necessary to remove Leia.

Wedge's escort left him in the shuttle bay of his cruiser and told him he could have as much time as he needed. Wedge's mind was racing. He needed a ship, more succinctly, he needed to steal a ship. There was no way he could manage this on his own, but there were few people he could trust. Only one person came to mind.

"Tremon here."

"Perry, this is Wedge. I need your help."

Captain Perry Tremon looked around the bridge, making sure no one was paying any attention to him. He knew no one could hear the personal transmission, but Wedge sounded urgent, and would probably not want attention drawn to this situation. "Yea, what can I do for you?"

"I need to ask you to do something for me, but it will probably mean the end of your career in this navy for quite a while." Wedge proceeded to explain what had just occurred, what he knew about Snotzenexer, and what was going on back on Coruscant. "If I let them remove me from the military, I'll never be able to get back in. I have to make a move now or never. I can't do it alone."

"I'm with you Wedge. I'm on my way to your quarters right now. I hope you have a game plan."

"Roger that. I'll tell you when you get here."

***

"Excuse me, sir, can I help you?" The tech nearly ran over to Perry as the Captain was examining one of the medium freighters in the Star Destroyer's flight bay.

It was only a half-hour before Wedge was scheduled to return to Coruscant, and Perry had just flown over to the Star Destroyer flag ship and had fought through the docking crew who hadn't wanted him to board. Perry had been able to talk and push his way through as the techs furiously tried to contact Pearson or one of their other superior officers to notify them of this unauthorized visit. Pearson had allowed the visit. He had done so only because Snotzenexer had told him Wedge would try something drastic and they needed more dirt on the Republic Admiral in order to ensure his removal from the military.

Now Perry was walking through the flight bay looking at the ships with a distant shadow. "Yes," Perry responded to the anxious tech who had stopped him, "can you tell me what kind of shielding this freighter has?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but that is classified."

"Classified!" Perry shrieked. "This is a Republic ship and I am your superior officer. What kind of fleet is this where the techs know more than the officers."

"I'm sorry, sir, but Commander Pear-"

"Commander?! Commander?! I'm a Captain. You sure do have a weird power structure philosophy going on in this ship." Perry took a breath and outwardly calmed. "Let me take a guess," he said, turning back to the ship sitting next to him. "This has single phased particle shielding with dual pulse modulated beam shielding. I know this because I do my research. What I also know is that if your ships are not fitted with strato-phased shielding they won't be a bit of good to us here. Without strato-phased shielding these ships won't last more than a minute in any one of the planet's stratospheres. Do you people have any mission briefings at all or did you just come down here to displace us without a single care for the lives we are trying to save?"

The tech was a little confused. He wasn't exactly sure if Perry was just trying to intimidate him or if he was really calling down a challenge to see if they were still part of the Empire. To be honest, Perry wasn't really sure what he was trying to do either. "I am going to check each one of these ships personally. For each ship I find without adjusted shields, that's another hour and a half that you will have to spend modifying the shields and another hour and a half that the planets down there will have to wait before help is given."

By now Perry's screaming had attracted the head tech officer to the situation. The officer had just been briefed by Pearson and understood Perry was trying to pull some type of move against the ship. He also knew he was supposed to allow him. What really got him steamed, though, was the fact that Perry was entirely correct about the shields.

"He's right, Jerbin," the officer said, "the shields need to be changed."

Jerbin was not as informed as his superior officer was, and gave him a second look at the command. The officer made a slightly pleading gesture with his eyes and then went stern. Jerbin got the hint and moved away from Perry and began to look for other techs he could rope into helping him adjust some shields.

Captain Tremon looked at the officer and tried to figure out his motives. "Lieutenant Sarthom," the officer introduced himself. Perry nodded in greeting. "I'm afraid we were pressed into service suddenly and are ill prepared to help. Don't worry, we are ready to do our part in the relief effort."

"I don't doubt it, lieutenant," Perry responded, looking around at the array of ships in the hangar. "With your addition to the fleet, you bring a lot of ships that are unfamiliar to me."

"Feel free to look around, Captain. I'm going to try and organize my men into making the shield adjustments you talked about." With that, the lieutenant walked away, leaving Perry alone in the hangar. If Perry hadn't been in such a hurry to get rid of the officer, he would have been suspicious of his willing departure. As it was, Perry made for the nearest ship that matched all of Wedge's requirements.

***

Wedge arrived at the Star Destroyer via shuttle a few minutes later. He was escorted down the ramp and into the main hangar of the Star Destroyer, all the while feeling like some sort of prisoner. He wasn't cuffed and had both hands in his in his pockets with his head hung down in faked dejection. He had two bags slung over his left shoulder, and someone behind him was carrying a third bag that totaled all of his personal belongings. In his right hand, hidden inside his pocket he was fidgeting with a small energy sensor. The instructions Wedge had given to Perry had been straight forward: find a ship with a decent cargo capacity and adequate weapons and preferably a tractor beam, get inside, prepare for immediate departure, and activate the beam shielding.

Wedge was busy pointing the small energy sensor at each ship he passed, trying to see which ship had its shields on. The third ship he passed on his way to the hyperspace shuttle that would take him back to Coruscant was a Skipray Blastboat. The sensor in Wedge's pocket beeped once and he hurriedly turned it off. Wedge tried to hide his smile. Excellent choice, Perry, he thought to himself. The ramp into the ship was open, and Wedge waited until he was only a few paces from the entrance before he dashed toward the ship.

Perry was watching closely and made sure his timing was accurate. As soon as Wedge made his move he fired up the engines and started raising the entry ramp. The former Republic Admiral leaped onto the fast closing outer entrance and was thrown to the floor of the ship as Perry lifted off of the hangar floor and made a dash for the closing bay doors in the hangar.

Wedge heard a sharp hissing noise as Perry actually got the ship into space before the ramp-way was fully closed. Perry had calculated the coordinates for their jump in advance, and as soon as they were clear of the Star Destroyer, they disappeared into hyperspace.

***

Snotzenexer listened patiently has Commander Pearson explained the situation to him. Snotzenexer wasn't angry at what had happened. He had expected and wanted Wedge to do something rash. No, Snotzenexer wasn't mad, at least not at first.

"Their trajectory into hyperspace after leaving the Star Destroyer was consistent with a trip to Coruscant," Pearson said, finishing up his report.

"And you have done nothing about this except call me," Snotzenexer said, his blood pressure starting to rise. "Am I supposed to assume that you think he actually going to Coruscant?"

Pearson could tell from Snotzenexer's voice that the former Imperial Admiral didn't share his beliefs. "Where else?"

"Anywhere else!" Snotzenexer screamed. "You were about to send him to Coruscant via a chartered shuttle. Why, in all the suns of Danzig, would he then steal a ship to get him to the same place? Now he is a rebel against the Republic when he could have waited to make his move once he got to Coruscant. Plus you say he stole a Skipray Blastboat. Why would he do that? If he wanted to run there are at least five faster ships in your hangar he could have taken. No, Antilles is far too smart to simply choose a ship at random if he has a specific task in mind."

"What would you have me do?" Pearson asked.

"Think for yourself for a change," Snotzenexer replied quite irritably. "I assume as the stolen craft left your long range sensors it was still headed toward Coruscant. Don't answer that. I know Antilles would make sure that was the case. He is also going somewhere that is also outside of your sensor range, else he would have headed directly there." Snotzenexer planned this out ahead of time. The only problem was he thought Wedge would do something Pearson would have been able to interpret on his own instead of simply running for the hills.

"The Skipray blast boat is the smallest capitol class ship in existence," Pearson said while he saw Snotzenexer was thinking. He knew the genius liked to have all the information possible. "It is smaller than many types of freighters and is given a capitol class only because of its fire power capacity. Because of its small size it is not capable of straight up fighting and specializes in group attacks or hit and runs. It is one the smallest ships with a tractor beam capable of toeing a fighter class. It also has a fair sized cargo bay."

"Are there any other ships with a tractor beams in your hangar?" Snotzenexer asked.

"We have four fighter tugs, one hyperspace tug, and six modified interceptors."

"Does the hyperspace tug have any cargo room?"

"No sir."

"He's heading for the asteroids that over shot Denor and Trewist," Snotzenexer said.

"What would he gain from that?"

"I don't need to explain everything to you," Snotzenexer replied, but decided to tell him anyway. "The senate has decided the asteroids exploded before they reached the Denorid system because of pockets of gronst in the asteroids. Gronst is very explosive when it undergoes rapid temperature changes and is also very common in the Danzig system. If Antilles can prove those asteroids not only didn't blow up from gronst, but were artificially detonated he will be able to convince the public that an investigation needs to take place. Even as president of the assembly I won't be able to prevent that investigation from happening."

"What about the asteroids that missed Forinad?"

"They should have been swallowed by a solar cluster that exists on the outskirts of the Danzig system. I haven't been able to do anything about these other asteroids because I don't have their coordinates. The information here on Coruscant can only give percentage chances of possible locations of the rocks. Antilles' cruiser was in system at the same time as the asteroids and therefore has trajectory information in his sensor logs that no one else has. Get that information and go stop Antilles before he topples everything I have worked to create. Please remember that in his day, Antilles was the best pilot in the Republic and don't take him for granted. While you're out there, destroy the rest of the asteroids."

With that, Snotzenexer closed the connection, leaving Pearson to scramble for the information he needed. It took him nearly twenty-four hours to get one of his scientists access to Wedge's former ship, after which it was another long time before the officer was able to extract the information Pearson wanted. He sent two more Skipray Blastboats, a modified freighter with interdiction capability, and three modified heavy TIE Interceptors. Anything more than that and he was scared he would call too much attention to the operation.

Chapter 10 "Solutions and Answers"

Senator Belsiphvin was waiting for Snotzenexer as his shuttle landed on Coruscant. "President," she started quickly as she tried to keep pace with Snotzenexer, "there are quite a few irate senators in the assembly wanting to speak with you about your resent endeavor."

"Senator," Snotzenexer replied as he continued to walk toward his office, "I sincerely doubt the senators themselves are upset, but it is the people whom they represent who have voiced their complaints."

"There is little difference if the senators represent their planets fully."

"Ah, but there is a difference," Snotzenexer turned to face the female senator as they had reached a turbo shaft and were waiting for the lift. "A senator who is mad at me will not be able to rationally discuss the situation, while one who is representing an angry public yet calm himself can listen and discuss rationally alternatives to the problem."

"Then there are solutions?" Belsiphvin asked as the lift chimed and the doors opened.

"There are always solutions to every problem." Snotzenexer motioned to the open lift in front of them. "This is going to take me straight to my office, where I don't think you want to go. While I arrange my presentation of a solution, why don't you gather all of the 'irate senators' and I will address them myself. I'm sure they will all be happy to find out I have a proposition that will not only fix their current problem but also maybe even improve their previous situation. We'll meet in about one hour in one of the committee rooms. When you decide on the room depending on the number of 'irate senators,' call me." With that, Snotzenexer stepped into the lift and was whisked away to prepare another miracle.

***

Senator Robbert looked at the information that came up on his screen. He was seated along with about 30 other senators in a small assembly room. Each senator had his own data module and President Snotzenexer was busy loading some information into the room's main data net so each senator could pull up a copy of the report.

They were all here because they were very concerned about their home planet's future. Robbert did not know all of the senators in the room well and knew even less about their respective planets. He assumed they all hailed from agricultural planets because that was why his planet was concerned.

Snotzenexer had just liberated the planet of Veck, the largest producer of grain in the known galaxy, while that planet had been held prisoner by Captain Zeth, the rest of the grain producing planets had flourished. Now it appeared that in a year or so, the boom would return to mediocrity. That alone was not enough to get these planets fired up, though. Every market had its ups and downs. The problem now was that with all of the improvements in farming technique that had occurred under the Empire's and then Zeth's occupation of the planet, Veck produced too much grain.

Many planets feared their governments would find out that it would be much cheaper to buy grain from Veck than to buy it from the farmers on their own planet. Before each planet had controlled its own trade routes and tariff systems. Now that Snotzenexer had set up another trade federation that had influence over every Republic planet, those taxes and tariffs were all pre set. Before when there had been a surplus of grain, the farmers had influenced the traders from their planet to tax outside grain heavily so their government would be forced to buy from their own farmers.

Even though one of the sources of this problem arose because of the new trade federation Snotzenexer had set in place, no one wanted to remove the trading system. The system brought a huge reduction in taxes and organized everything a lot better than it had been. The main problem was in the fact that there was simply a surplus of grain. This problem arose because the people of Veck were now free to trade with anyone, yet no moral person wanted to see Zeth put back in charge.

Robbert understood his people were upset at the change of events, but there was really nothing they could ask Snotzenexer to do to change them. Yet, here they were, 30 senators from 30 planets all of which had farmers that were planning to sell their farms before they went bankrupt, and Snotzenexer proclaimed he had a solution. Robbert's computer was done downloading the information and he began reading it.

"During the middle years of the Old Republic, scouts discovered the Vratix on their vegetative home-world, Thyferra, in the Polith system. The Vratix had achieved an information-age technology, colonizing Thyferra's moon and establishing small outposts throughout their system. They possessed a planet-wide government, from which local tribes annually elected delegates to serve in a representative council. Every two years, the council appointed two "canirs" or chief officers to direct the council and act as world leaders.

"Once new technical knowledge was revealed by the Old Republic scouts and subsequent diplomats and visitors, the Vratix went into a technological frenzy. They constructed advanced star vehicles, made huge breakthroughs in science, and finally developed one of the most significant accomplishments the science of medicine had ever known: bacta. By placing small bacterial particles of alazhi, a lotion Vratix use to heal cuts and burns, in a special liquid chemical, kavam, they created bacta. The bacta at first would quickly sour, becoming ineffective, but by circulating it through a regulating tank with a clear synthetic fluid similar to the body's own vital fluids, the bacta would last for an indefinite time.

"The healing results were simply amazing. Rejuvenation tanks with bacta have been an integral part of the medical scene ever since. Vratix bacta-harvesting companies arose with the arrival of this new technology. The Xucphra and Zaltin are the two main companies that control society and create a great deal of societal strife for the Vratix because of loyalties.

"The galactic population was eager to have this miracle cure. Money was made and deals were struck, but the lowly Vratix traders who started it were crushed in corporate competition. The original bacta commercial wars expanded the power of the Vratix and stretched their influence over many planets and systems. Kavam could be easily synthesized, but the bacterial particles of alazhi needed an ideal tropical environment with the correct chemical atmosphere to grow. Alazhi in ecologically controlled rooms was easily contaminated by small particles even with high-level technology, and could not be grown on the large scale needed for corporate profit. A whole world was needed to maintain the balances and make harvesting economically feasible.

"To solve this problem, the Vratix entrepreneurs colonized many planets searching for such an environment. They found some suitable planets, but the planets were scattered about the galaxy. Unable to maintain a domineering presence on all the planets, the entrepreneurs contracted and divided their cultivation out among smaller, more local businesses and farmers, each supervised by a few corporate subordinates. The harvesters would sell the entrepreneurs all their harvested alazhi as part of their contracts leasing harvest land. Since the components could now be easily synthesized and grown, bacta became a universal commodity.

"The two major bacta-producing corporations, Zaltin and Xucphra, each made agreements with the Imperial factions, offering them an annual supply of bacta to sustain the Imperial military. In return, the Empire did little to suppress the bacta trade for the two corporations, only initiating a few modest tariffs and taxes. But the bargains also fabricated a virtual monopoly over bacta harvesting for the two companies, prohibiting all other bacta cultivators.

"This ended the bacta commercial wars and drove many small bacta traders underground. The Vratix companies only produce the bacta fluid, using either their allied Vratix work tribes or licensed harvesters. Other enterprises throughout the galaxy package the bacta, distribute it, and made the actual rejuvenation tanks and medical equipment.

"All organizations and tribes under the service of Zaltin or Xucphra are strictly watched and directed. Every batch of manufactured bacta has an identification number. This makes supervising and tracking easier, in cases of business trouble, Rebel entanglements, or bacta contamination. The numbers and batches are so thoroughly checked and inspected by the Vratix companies that it led to the uncovering of the Rebel base at Ketal. Xucphra promptly informed the Empire, and the base was destroyed.

"As the two major companies control the Vratix's home-world, there exists malcontents. The Ashern (Vratix for "Black Claw") are the most prominent terrorist circle in Vratix society, fighting for the downfall of the companies and a better nationalistic government. They paint themselves black and sharpen their angular spikes to symbolize the pains and frustrations of the average Vratix bacta laborer.

"The Ashern are also responsible for bacta contaminations - and one that even affected Coruscant. They used stolen corporate funds to bribe a sympathetic Imperial Moff, Kyl Ransen, to allow Ashern terrorists access to a shipment of bacta, ready to be transported to Coruscant. They tainted the bacta with an unusually resistant virus strain that would make a person allergic to bacta. The ploy worked, and almost two million soldiers and citizens were infected before the bacta was withdrawn. The Empire was outraged, but it could do little than require the bacta companies to tighten their regulations and protect the bacta shipments. Ransen went into hiding and is regarded by many Vratix nationalists as a great hero.

"Shortly after the Imperial government was removed from Coruscant, Zaltin and Xucphra offered the same exclusive deal to the New Republic. It was rumored that some shipments of bacta still found their way to the remnants of the Empire, but all accusations were denied vehemently by the two corporations.

"The demand for bacta increases every year, even with the occasional problems. Zaltin and Xucphra keep a good track of their bacta shipments, so militant rebel groups, must seek and purchase their supplies from smugglers or corrupt businessmen. Bacta is an item that helps the whole galaxy. Though it may have caused discord and hardship for the Vratix, it has also improved the quality of medical care throughout the galaxy."

Robbert finished reading quickly and watched the other senators for their reaction to the document. Some raised their eyebrows, while others' horns turned a dim shade of blue. One senator's eyestalk almost tied itself in a knot at the report. Robbert to had to admit it was a bit out of place. What did the history of bacta have to do with this grain surplus?

Snotzenexer was watching the senators as they read (or assimilated in some fashion, depending on race) the information. Robbert also looked for his reaction to the senators' reaction. As always, the president's expression was deadpan. Robbert knew the president's reputation as a mental giant and desperately wished to know what was churning through that mind right now.

Finally all the senators had finished and looked expectantly at their president. "I thought since the freeing of one enslaved people started this little financial dilemma we're in, the freeing of another people might end it."

"I assume you are talking about the Vratix," one senator spoke up, a little uneasiness in his voice. "I assure you, they are not enslaved. When the deal was struck with the New Republic almost 25 years ago, one of the particulars was that Xucphra and Zaltin cease and desist any activity that could be deemed immoral by the New Republic. The Vratix are no more mistreated than any other population supporting a huge corporation."

Snotzenexer looked at the senator, Reginoll by name. The former admiral had done his research as always and knew this man would be a tough sell. In fact, Snotzenexer had figured he would not be able to convince this man at all. Theonic Reginoll came from the planet of Janik, a relatively small planet in the scope of things, but home to a very powerful man. Norric Harmeon was the president of the Xucphra Corporation, the larger of the two bacta companies. Harmeon controlled almost everything that happened on Janik, and several other things in the small planet's sector. Outside of that and the bacta franchise, he had little power. Still, Reginoll could not have been appointed senator from Janik without Harmeon's approval.

Snotzenexer smiled at the senator, realizing he was going to make some enemies in the next year, but you can't please everyone all of the time. "The Vratix might not be enslaved physically, but then neither were the Veckorians. Zeth did not use a whip to suppress the oppressed farmers. He didn't limit their rations. If anything he increased them. Zeth held them in financial slavery, just as Xucphra and Zaltin hold the Vratix. If there was a patent on bacta it would belong to the Vratix. If anyone should make money off the selling of bacta it should be the Vratix. Instead they are subjected to mere servanthood as their planet has been turned into a giant factory."

Reginoll smiled back at the president, thinking him a fool suggesting what he was. "You will never be able to destroy the bacta corporations without going to war with them. They control over 15 different planets scattered all over the galaxy. The senate will not allow any military operation of that size."

"You misunderstand my intentions," Snotzenexer replied. "I do not want to go to war," though I think I will, he thought privately, "I simply want to end Xucphra's and Zaltin's monopoly on bacta. Monopolies are not illegal but, as I'm sure you know, are not only unethical, but also bad for financial prosperity. As many of you are aware," he said now to the whole audience, "the main reason I was appointed president of the Republic is to restore financial prosperity to the galaxy.

"What I am proposing is the creation of a new organization within the Republic for the distribution bacta and other medical equipment. Right now bacta is only available to the military through the two main corporations. I want us to live in a galaxy where the most advanced medicine is available to every citizen in the Republic."

"Bacta is way too expensive for that," Reginoll scoffed.

"That is why I plan to increase the supply to meet the demand. We have 30 worlds represented right here with farmers that will have an almost useless crop in about a year when the price negotiations between the trade federation and Veck are finalized. I am giving them the opportunity to get in on a crop that will produce them more money than they could have possibly imagined."

Reginoll almost laughed out loud. "Did you not even read the report you gave us? The bacteria alazhi can not be grown on just any planet. Why do you think there are only about 15 planets in the entire galaxy growing this bacteria? You need the perfect jungle atmosphere. Artificial environments have been thoroughly exhausted to the point where Xucphra and Zaltin have resigned to being content with 15 planets."

This comment brought quite a few harsh whispers from the seated senators. Robbert looked at Reginoll in amazement. Was the man an idiot? That problem was so obvious that if he thought for a moment Snotzenexer had not himself thought of it, the man should be thrown out of the senate immediately.

"I agree with you," Snotzenexer replied. "Over 300 years ago when bacta was first discovered, the best greenhouse in the world couldn't simulate the environment. The most resent attempts at a simulated bacta farm 60 years ago also failed miserably. In fact as recently as five years ago the technology didn't exist for such an endeavor, but four years ago, the Republic's science and exploration division teamed up with a shield generator producer to attempt a domed mining expedition on a toxic planet. The artificial atmosphere they created underneath the energy dome was one hundred percent stable even during one of the planet's violent storms."

"This new energy shield might work, but it might not," Reginoll said, though he was much deflated already guessing that Snotzenexer knew it would work.

"Actually, the Republic lent the technology to one of the underground bacta dealers it had been aquatinted with during the rebellion. It has worked now for three years without a glitch."

"I haven't seen this new shield anywhere," a new senator spoke up.

"The shield generator producer, Custom Shields Galactica, has not advertised it because it is not a commercial product and is very expensive to construct."

This comment brought a lot of commotion from the senators. Snotzenexer raised his hands and asked for silence. "I know what you may be thinking. 'How will my farmers be able to afford such a piece of machinery?' If the senate passes my proposal for the creation of a health and drug administration division within the Republic, then the Varion Imperial Bank, of which I am still the head, plans to invest an extraordinary sum in Custom Shields Galactica.

"I have talked with the head of that company, and he as told me the sum he would require to create a separate division for the sole purpose of producing this new advanced shield. Though the sum is astronomical, if the rest of the galaxy continues to mimic my every stock trade, as they have in the past, the head of that company may well receive ten times the sum he is looking for. With a separate division enabling mass production of the shield, the price should be cut by three fourths.

"Any farmer who is still not able to purchase the device will be able to receive a loan from my bank at a very low interest rate if the money is used toward the purchase of a shield."

"You are aware that Xucphra and Zaltin will halt their production of bacta to us," Reginoll spoke for the last time.

"I doubt it," Snotzenexer replied, enjoying nailing this arrogant senator. "Who would they sell to? No, they will continue to sell bacta to our military because no one else can absorb their production rate. Besides, the Republic will make no move against either company. I plan to form a health and drug administration, and that will be the extent of the Republic's involvement in the situation. The Varion Imperial Bank will invest money in Custom Shields Galactica and grant loans, but the Republic's association with the bank is as a subsidiary and not otherwise.

"Of course if either bacta company makes a move against one of the Republic's member farmers trying to grow bacta, the government will protect its citizens. As far as the Republic is concerned, Xucphra and Zaltin can continue their bacta production. As I said, it will be the goal of the Republic's health and drug administration to acquire as much bacta as it can to distribute amongst the population as it sees fit."

The senators, save one, enjoyed what they were hearing. "Like I said before, the Republic does not wish to make a public stand against the two bacta power houses unless they provoke us, so it will be up to you to let your people know about the opportunity they have to save their farms. It is foolish of us to think only 30 worlds will be affected by the surplus in grain. I'd personally be surprised if there were a hundred planets that won't be. Every agricultural market has obviously not interpreted the happenings on Veck yet, but they will be. Talk to your fellow senators and tell them about this endeavor.

"I am speaking as an investor as I tell you about this opportunity, but as the President of the Republic, I'm telling you that if you don't use this opportunity to save your farms and can't think of another way, because I'm sure there are others, the Republic can not bail out trillions of bankrupt farmers."

There was nothing but smiling faces in amongst the 30 senators. Well almost nothing but. Reginoll was not looking forward to talking with Harmeon of the Xucphra Company. Robbert was also looking concerned. "President," he spoke up above the din.

Snotzenexer called for silence, having expected this interruption from the bright young senator from a small planet. "President, this solution you have put forward will surely help all of the large farms survive this grain surplus, but my planet is made up of mostly small farms designed to grow food for their local province and no more. While you might supply them with a loan, as you said, they simply do not have the field space to make such an investment feasible."

"You are quite right senator," Snotzenexer replied, the rest of the senators quieting down to see how the president would handle this. "Bacta is not the only medical supply that this new administration will pay good money for. I have a few medical advisors who can provide you with a list of different pharmisuticals that will be in high demand and the plants from which they originate. I have looked at the list briefly, but am not of a biological mind set and can not recall it for you, though I can assure you, there are a few different plants that will be very inexpensive for small farmers to grow while remaining very profitable."

This last addition to the meeting pleased everyone. Once Robbert had brought up the concern, the rest of the senators realized they had many small farms on their worlds also. Snotzenexer looked for Reginoll at the end of the meeting, but the worried senator had already scampered out of the chamber, no doubt running to the nearest communication center.

***

The meal was fish and salad. Thomas apologized for not having any dressing for the salad or sauce for the fish. Luke laughed at his ludicrous apologies, easily forgiving him. Thomas made up for it, though, by producing a bottle of wine for after dinner.

"Wine?" Luke gasped. "Where on Hoth did you get that?"

"I made it, just like everything else," Thomas said simply, pouring Luke a hefty helping of the bubbling liquid. "They have been making wine since before people had electricity. It doesn't require much work, just the right ingredients and a lot of patience, which is something I have quite a bit of."

"But the glass bottle," Luke said, pointing at the transparent bottle.

Thomas picked it up and threw it across the cave for Luke to examine. The throw was awful, and if Luke didn't do anything about it it would shatter against the cave wall. He easily brought the throw under control and guided the bottle to his hand. "Stupid Jedi," Thomas complained. "I wanted it to hit the wall."

"Why?"

"To show you it wasn't glass. Go ahead, bang it against something. I have over 200 more of those things. I make about three a week."

Luke moved some of the animal skins off his chair so he had exposed stone and tentatively tapped the bottle against the rock. The hollow bottle rebounded uninjured. He hit it a little harder, and finally brought it down as hard as he could without the Force. The bottle remained intact. "So what is it?" Luke asked, truly amazed.

"I have no idea," Thomas responded, "but it's the only reason I have survived as long as I have. It is some type of transparent metal, but also has several qualities of a crystal. Its reflecting capabilities are incredible, and it has a very impressive strength."

"Is that what you made your sword out of?" Luke asked, remembering the translucent weapon.

With out speaking, Thomas brought the weapon out again and tossed it more carefully at the Jedi. Luke caught it, testing its balance. He stood up and went through a few parrying routines. It was a little heavy, but if used consistently, its user would learn to compensate. "Impressive," he finally said, taking time to examine the blade. Luke was of course used to using a weightless weapon made of pure light and energy, but he could recognize the quality of the other weapons.

Luke walked the weapon back to its creator, not caring to test the man's catching ability. "You're not wearing a neck band," Luke noticed for the first time. "Were you a lucky one or did you find a way to remove it?"

"There is a story involved," Thomas said, motioning Luke back to his chair. "It will probably answer just about every question you have about this place and maybe a few that you haven't thought of."

Luke took his seat and tasted the wine he had been given for the first time. It was very good. There was some type of fruit mix in it that Luke couldn't identify, but it was very sweet with the liquid tracing a hot path down his throat. "Feel free to finish the bottle, if you like," Thomas offered. "Like I said, I have a ton of it in storage, and the nights can get cold." Luke drained the rest of his glass, poured another, and sat back to listen to Thomas's story.

Thomas had been dropped off on the planet during the warm season (if you could call it that) somewhere south of the cave, but still north of the equator. He had been given a much thicker coat than Luke had with a month's supply of rations, a blaster rifle, six power packs, and a compass. He had a neckband on and was warned there was also a tracking device that had been injected into him and an orbiting satellite that would open fire on him if the band was ever removed.

The band's purpose was to track him from anywhere in the galaxy. It was impossible to make an injectable tracer strong enough to send a signal any further than out into orbit. At night, Thomas could see the satellite. It didn't orbit the planet, but used thrusters to stay exactly over-top of the prisoner. There was a bomb in the neckband, but Thomas had disarmed that easily by punching a hole in the explosive and pouring water in the hollow section. When the water froze, it expanded, breaking apart the bomb. It wasn't until he discovered the transparent metal material that he thought of a way to get rid of the satellite.

There were several caves that Thomas lived in before his current abode. In one of them he found a piece of metal encased in ice. He was curious about it and tried to break through the ice with a crude stone hammer he had constructed. It wasn't ice, and he had no luck. When he tried to melt it with his blaster, he nearly took his head off when the bolt reflected back at him.

Thomas finally found out how to use the stuff one night when it was bitter cold. The material became so brittle that Thomas was able to chisel it quite easily. The metal crumbled into a powder substance. Using some crude powder metallurgy techniques, he was able to form the stuff into anything he wanted.

On the next cold night, Thomas had smashed as much of the stuff as he could find, storing the powder in hide sacks. When he realized how effective it was at reflecting energy bolts, he came up with a plan. He formed a large plate three meters square of the material and brought it up to a peak right across the valley of his present cave. The cave hadn't been there yet, but was about to be created.

Thomas waited for night, so he could judge where the satellite was. He propped the large plate up on two rock supports. He angled the plate so it aimed at the base of the mountain across the valley. He then positioned himself behind the plate and proceeded to remove the collar.

As soon as the collar was off, the satellite rained turbo laser fire down on him. The probe was programmed to fire until the injected chip was destroyed, or more crudely, when Thomas was blown to bits. The probe fired about once every five seconds, and the bolts were reflected across the valley into the base of the mountain. The noise was incredible, bringing every living creature within range of the display out to watch.

Thomas had been bothered little by the predators of Hoth, but after this display, every semi-intelligent being thought this human to be some sort of fire god, summoning fire from heaven. Thomas dared to peak around the plate between shots and saw that the shots were forming a pretty impressive cave across the valley.

Soon the explosions from the base of the mountain became more subdued as the blasts drilled deeper and deeper into much more stable rock. The procedure lasted about six hours. After six hours, the shots started to come less frequently. The goal had been to drain the battery of the probe during the night so it didn't have any chance to recharge in the sunlight.

After about six and a half hours, the shots stopped all together. Thomas watched from behind his protective shield as the energy depleted probe could no longer hold its position above the planet and was drawn toward the surface by gravity. It crashed about three kilometers away.

Thomas was able to salvage a lot of raw material from the crash, but the real find was the cave that had been formed. The bolts had drilled deep into the mountain, offering far more shelter than any of the shallow caves Thomas had lived in before. The major bonus was that during the six and a half hours, the turbo lasers had drilled almost all the way to the center of the planet, bringing up an awful lot of heat. Snow had filled the deep hole and soon melted.

The one problem with the cave was that it had a huge door. Thomas spent several weeks closing the cave from the outside with landslides and crude masonry that used ice as mortar. The rest of his modifications to the cave came slowly.

At the equator, there was a month thaw in which some small wooden shoots grew and several other plants sprouted briefly. He had transplanted as many different plants as he could into his own little garden. The soil was made from dirt and wampa droppings. The fish he had collected over time and they had thrived in the warm water, giving him a never-ending supply of food. He hunted occasionally, and the meat from one wampa or tauntaun would last him a month.

Luke absorbed this story without speaking. At the end of it all, Luke noticed he had finished the entire bottle of wine and was getting sleepy. Thomas noticed this also. "I haven't finished your bed yet, but you might find it adequate. Otherwise, you might be able to finish it yourself."

Luke got up shaking some of the alcohol out of his head and stabilizing himself before making it over to his bed. He summoned the tool Thomas had been using earlier and examined the bed. It was deep enough to hold him, but that was if he wanted to sleep on hard stone. He felt the rock with his hand and sensed the rock structure and where the fracture lines were. Seven hard cracks with the tool, and Luke had added a dozen more centimeters to the bed's depth. There was a pile of hides next to the bed and Luke put them in. Ten minutes later the Jedi Master was fast asleep.

***

Thomas awoke to find his resident Jedi Master sitting cross-legged on the floor with his eyes screwed shut. Curious but respectful, the former Imperial captain watched the motionless Jedi for ten minutes before Luke stirred. He blinked his eyes several times and looked around the room, appearing to have momentarily forgotten where he was.

"Good morning, Luke," Thomas said and handed his guest a cup of hot something-or-other.

Luke looked at it momentarily, but Thomas hadn't poisoned him yet. As he drank it Thomas told him what it was. "It's just roots that I boiled in water. I guess I've tried to eat or drink everything on this planet. The result isn't exactly what you're probably used to, but there is definitely caffeine in the root."

Luke didn't think the drink offered too much flavor, but Thomas was right, it certainly woke you up. Luke got off the floor and made his way to the table. Thomas was beginning to prepare some seasoned sausage and bacon, both taken from the same animal by the looks of them. "I don't mind feeding an extra mouth," Thomas began, "but it does mean that we are going to have to expand my garden and maybe the fish pond."

"There may not be a need," Luke said, taking another sip from his cup. "I just got finished talking with my sister. She tells me one of my friends on the outside is organizing a little rescue mission. She couldn't give me the details because she doesn't know them herself, but the person organizing it is trust-worthy."

"Well if you're going to escape, you might want to do something about that collar of yours."

Luke touched the collar and remembered that he also had some kind of homing beacon inside him. He reached out with his mind and found the satellite above him, waiting to fire down and destroy him if he removed the collar. Luke began tugging on the satellite, testing to see how strong its position stabilizers were. Luke tugged and it tugged back. Luke leaned into it a little harder and could feel the stabilizers straining to keep the suddenly heavy satellite out of the atmosphere. Luke removed all his mental safeties and pulled with more Force strength than he'd exerted in a very long time. The satellite couldn't stand up to that and it began to loose altitude quickly.

Luke could feel the doomed machine begin to burn up and the stabilizers fried themselves into malfunction. Luke let go of the satellite, allowing gravity do the rest of the work for him. He only checked it periodically to make sure it wouldn't land near their humble abode.

Thomas heard the crash and explosion and looked up from his cooking. "What was that?"

"That," Luke began as he undid the lock on his neck collar, "was the last I'll have to worry about the Empire's security measures. After breakfast we can go check the wreckage to see if we can salvage anything."

Interlude II

He was dead.

This was just something he had to accept. Just the fact that he could accept it, or that he could realize he had to, denied the reality of his position. How could a dead man think or realize things? Obviously his idea of death had to be rearranged slightly. He was definitely without a body - that much had been made painfully obvious to him during his awakening. He was without a body, but his mind still seemed to function, even though it was a different feeling than he was familiar with. Before, his mind had mainly been responding to stimuli that his senses registered. Now there were no stimuli, only thought.

Jacen Solo needed guidance.

Anakin Skywalker, formerly Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, had watched his grandson enter this existence and had held back any influence on the situation. Everyone who passed from the physical world needed to deal with the sensation of their new predicament on their own. Without coming to their own realizations, they would forever be lost, dependent on someone else for information. Now, though, Jacen had fully woken to his situation and assistance was allowed, in fact, it was highly suggested.

Jacen was no longer alone.

The feeling was something new to the dead Jedi. Normally when someone approached him, he would hear the footsteps, feel the draft of their presence, see a shadow flutter. All of these things coupled with his Force sensitivity told him of others' presence. Now he merely felt no longer alone. He was no longer lost in depression or drowned in his recent flood of revelations. The question was "Who was with him?"

"Jacen."

The recently deceased obviously did not hear the voice, but he had participated in enough Force enhanced communications with his sister that he knew what was happening and how he "heard" the "voice."

"Yes," he responded tentatively.

"Your union with us was expected."

What kind of hello was that? Shouldn't whoever this was be consoling him on his resent passage from the physical plane of existence. People don't look into a coffin at a funeral, smirk, and nod their heads saying, "I told you he wasn't going to make it to his 26th birthday."

"Who are you?"

"Do you know why you died, Jacen Solo?"

Jacen thought about this briefly. This being didn't seem like he was trying to be secretive, only that he had his own agenda in this meeting at didn't want to waiver.

"Human flesh does not stand up that well to a lightsaber," Jacen responded, gaining a little confidence in his situation. What was the guy going to do, kill him? Besides, Jacen planed on being uncooperative until the man explained a little.

"I am your grandfather."

Jacen was shocked. The revelation meshed too evenly with his thoughts to be a coincidence. If this being claiming to be Anakin Skywalker, for Jacen knew nothing of his father's parents, could read his every thought, then conversation seemed useless.

"Why am I here?" Jacen responded, deciding to play a little more humble role in this encounter.

"Apparently," the being said slowly, "human flesh doesn't stand up that well to a lightsaber."

"Anakin, give the boy a break."

"Yes, much has he been through, and much he will yet have to endure."

These two other "voices" were different than the one he was currently conversing with. Jacen didn't bother asking who they were, but searched his feelings and the Force for answers. Obi-Wan and Yoda were with him, and, yes, it was his grandfather.

"Jacen," it was Obi-Wan, "it is true that we have been expecting you for some time, but that does not mean that we regret to see you here. Your destiny, as every Jedi's destiny dictates, was supposed to take you much further along the road of life, allowing you to accomplish many great things."

"Listen to your teachers, you did not," Yoda put in. "Warn you of your recklessness they did, and of your temper. Killed you it did, and sent you here far before you time."

"The man who killed you was not evil," Anakin explained. "He was surely guilty of what you accused him, but he had no bad intentions. He had been hired by the Empire without any knowledge of the atrocities they were performing. He had flat out told them he did not want to kill anyone and didn't want to start a war. He was hired to perform a job and was promised good pay. He had been neutral and if the Republic had approached him first, he would have been your ally. Where would I be if your uncle hadn't looked past my black suit and into my soul to determine my true nature? Instead you simply looked for something to lash out against and this man was the first thing that presented itself to you."

"Control you must learn," Yoda was speaking again, "control and discipline."

"Your focus must stay on the here and now, not looking into the past or a perceived future," Obi-Wan informed. "You have spent your life either striving for a goal that was so far in the future, or repaying a debt so far in the past, that you have never been able to appreciate your current situation."

Jacen took the advice stoically. He had heard this all before, as Yoda had pointed out, but he had never seen the urgency. Of course, he had never died before. He had jumped into a lot of other things that his teachers had told him he wasn't ready for but he had always succeeded, and in his way of thinking, that meant he had been right in doing what he had. Now he saw he had just been playing sabacc with his life. In the past he had out-played his opponents but now finally came against a fool's array and had cashed in. The only question Jacen had was why they were telling him this now.

"It is never too late to learn," Anakin responded to Jacen's unasked question. Jacen begged to differ. "You might not now see the benefit of learning the answers after you have already failed the test, but your life is not over."

"You will still have influence over what happens in the physical realm," Obi-Wan explained. "You will be able to give advice to others. You will learn many more things in your existence here, things that you will be able to impart with those you left behind."

"You want me to haunt my friends?" Jacen could no longer keep his thoughts silent. "That might seem like a great idea to you, but you're not me. You guys all kicked off late in your life. I am 25 years old and haven't experienced a tenth of what I wanted to. Now I am faced with this," Jacen desperately wanted to spread his arms out to illustrate the void he was in, but he had no arms, "for how long? A thousand years? Two thousand? Eternity? I don't want to visit my sister in her dreams. I want to visit her by knocking on her door. What of my friends?" If Jacen had a throat it would be choking up now. "What about my family? When you guys died you were either living as hermits or had no friends, or both. I'm different. You guys even said I wasn't supposed to die yet. I had a lot of life to live and I still want to live it.

"Floating around in this void is not life. Life is a thing of beauty. An existence of sights and smells and tastes and sounds and feels so much more than this meager reality that it tears me apart to think of what I will be missing and what I will be denying my family by my absence."

"Think of this before you acted, you should have."

"Still, this knowledge can be useful."

"What," Jacen screamed in his mind, "so I can teach it to the students at the Academy. I can see it now, Uncle Luke creates a new class where everyone falls asleep and is taught by the great Jacen Solo. 'He speaks from beyond the grave, wise beyond his years.'"

"Someone much closer to you than that needs to hear you," Anakin said. "Someone who is struggling with the will to live. Someone, who unlike you, is struggling with the choice between this meager existence or the more prolific one you just explained in your recent tirade."

"Who?"

"You will know when the time comes."

The time came.

Chapter 11 "Space Battles"

Wedge Antilles and Perry Tremon took their sweet time getting to the wayward space rocks. They had initially been heading toward Coruscant, which, although it was not in the opposite direction of the asteroids, made their trip much more roundabout than it needed to be. They also wanted to skirt the long-range sensors of the ships in the Denorid system, which made their route even longer. They finally got to a few of the asteroids about thirty hours after they had left - a trip that was at least six times longer than it had to be.

The rocks had flown past Trewist and Forinad in clusters, but now, after over two weeks of space flight, they had become very spread out. The result was an enormous net of asteroids that covered a huge amount of space. It wasn't dangerous to fly through in normal space with each rock separated from its nearest neighbor by at least a hundred klicks, but it would make a rather impressive natural interdiction field for passing hyperspace traffic.

Wedge had taken over the flying after they had left hyperspace, and he moved into range of one of the closest rocks. Wedge spent several minutes examining the asteroid with the sensors before he fired at it. Even the smallest rock in the sparse field was bigger than their ship and needed to be broken up in order to be tractored into the cargo hold. Wedge found minute cracks in the huge spinning rock and fired along those fault lines.

The asteroid exploded into uneven pieces, several of which came flying toward the Skipray Blastboat. These pieces reflected harmlessly off the shields, and stayed in the vicinity of the ship.

"Nice shot," Perry said as he entered the cockpit. He had been resting in the back but had gotten up when he felt the ship leave hyperspace.

"Let's see if I can't real in one of these pieces." Wedge managed with little difficulty to lock the tractor beam onto one of the smaller rocks and brought it toward the ship. After sealing off the cargo area, he opened the outer-doors and brought the rock into the hold.

Wedge had filled one of the two bags he had brought with him with sensor equipment, and he got that bag now as he headed for the cargo bay with Perry in toe. Wedge made sure the cargo bay was repressurized before he opened the door, and stepped up to the several ton rock sitting in the middle of the cargo hold.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Perry asked as he took a piece of electronic equipment from Wedge.

"If these asteroids were blown apart by gronst, there should be residue left on them. Plus, if they were instead blown apart by some type of detonation device there would also be some type of residue." Wedge dug around in his bag until he found the type of scanner he wanted. "I tried to fire along a fault line on the asteroid so it wouldn't only break where I fired. That way there should be no carbon scoring from ship fire unless it was put there when we blew these wretched things up back when we were trying to save Trewist and Denor."

After almost an hour of work they had found nothing. There was no foreign substance on the rock at all. Wedge slumped against the cold asteroid racking his brain, trying to think of some other way he could prove that these rocks had been deliberately sent at the Denorid system.

"Were not going to find any detonator residue unless we are lucky enough to get the piece the explosive was directly attached to," Perry said, voicing what Wedge was already realizing. "There might be another way though."

Wedge perked up at this, "What would that be?"

"You said that you thought these asteroids were placed on a collision course with the Denorid system intentionally. In order to do that, you would have to release the rocks from the cargo hold of a ship as it too was heading toward the Denorid system. This means that these rocks were loaded into a ship, say a Super Star Destroyer, and then released in the Danzig system on a path towards their targets. The asteroids could have been loaded into the ship somewhere else and only dumped in the Danzig system. In fact, if I was going to do it, I would definitely not try and gather the asteroids from the Danzig system, as volatile as it is."

"Of course," Wedge said, pushing himself away from the rock he had been leaning against. "Luke had gone to the Varion system because there were reports that Imperial ships were seen in an asteroid field."

"You know that each asteroid field is unique," Perry said, beginning to see there was hope. "They each have their own mineral make up and ore concentrations - kind of like DNA."

"We're breaking this rock up," Wedge announced, "then we'll be able to analyze its composition. Of course, we'll have to make a trip to the Varion system also to compare the two samples."

"We should also get another rock or two from here just to make sure we have a good sample. We might have just picked up a piece of rock that had a super concentration of calcium and iron. It is, after all, only a small part of a whole rock and not a good predictor of the norm."

The next hour involved the laborious work of chopping up the rock with special vibro blades so they could feed it into the ships onboard analyzer. The process was cut short when an alarm sounded from the cockpit.

"What's that?" Perry asked suddenly.

"Probably the proximity sensors," Wedge answered, not looking up from his work. "I set it up to notify us when we drifted too close to one of the other asteroids. Remember this field is still moving. I don't want to bounce around in it like a ball in an electro-paddle game. Could you go steer us clear?"

"Sure thing." Perry got up from his work and ran up to the cockpit. Twenty seconds later he yelled back at Wedge. "It's not an asteroid, Wedge," he informed the former admiral. "You better get up here fast!"

"Wha-" Wedge started, but figured it was important and ran after Perry to the cockpit. He had no idea how important it was until he saw the six ships flying toward them. "Pearson, that son of a rancor. How'd he find us?"

"It doesn't matter now," Perry said the obvious. "They're powering up their weapons, no sign of any attempts at communication yet."

"There won't be either," Wedge responded, displacing Perry from the pilot's seat. Perry settled into the copilot's seat and began angling the deflector shields. "We stole this ship, and they can claim that we opened fire first in their report to the senate as to how two high ranking military men were killed. Besides they know that we know their agenda is still pro-Empire so there is no need to pretend out here." The problem is, Wedge thought to himself, we are severely out gunned.

Wedge had no delusions of winning a fight with the six ships and turned to try and run. The interdictor ship was one step ahead of him and the faster vessel cut him off, erecting a interdiction field that was large enough make sure Wedge wouldn't be able to jump to hyperspace before he dealt with the other more heavily armed ships.

The three TIE Interceptors came screaming in at him, peppering the back of his ship with fire. "They're not going to be able to get through our shields very easily with those interceptors," Perry said.

"They won't have to," Wedge replied, "those other two ships are Skipray Blastboats. We won't be able to hit the nimble interceptors, while they will be able to keep our shields depleted so any shot from the blastboats will take us out."

"A well thought-out plan," Perry appreciated the strategy.

Wedge headed for a large asteroid, suddenly wishing that this field was a lot more densely packed. "See if you can tug on this asteroid a little as we swing past it."

Perry's fingers worked over the tractor beam and acquired a stable hold of the rock. The two blastboats were now on Wedge's trail and taking pot shots at his exposed rear. Wedge looped hard around the asteroid, using the tractor beam to pull the rock directly behind him and spinning wildly. The two trails didn't see the move coming and continued to fire madly at their prey. The asteroid swung into their line of fire and took six shots before the two Imperial blastboats broke off their pursuit.

Wedge had transferred most of his ship's momentum into the asteroid and had sent it spinning viciously. When it blew apart, pieces went flying sporadically over a large spread. The TIE's where flying perimeter routes, staying out of the way of the heavy blastboats. As Wedge had planned, they were in the most danger from the violent debris. Two of the three got lucky and avoided major contact, but the third took a five ton chunk square in its pod, blowing it into oblivion.

The remaining two interceptors were wary, and Wedge knew the same trick wouldn't work again. Instead he heard tone as both TIE's acquired a missile lock on his relatively motionless ship and fired. Wedge's blastboat had come almost to a standstill after transferring his momentum to the asteroid. He now punched the engine and flew into the remaining shrapnel from the destroyed asteroid. One of the two missiles bought it on a small piece of rock, but the other struck home on the back of the blastboat.

"Damage," Wedge asked as he concentrated on trying to get on one of the other blastboat's tail.

"Direct hit," Perry responded, "the shields in the back are almost gone and we've lost repulser stabilizers. No major hull damage, but if one of those blastboats hits us in the sore spot, we're done."

Wedge couldn't get a solid lock on his opponent, but noticed that the other blastboat had been able to pick him up easily enough. Of course, Wedge thought, they know each other's patterns and just let me get in the middle. Wedge couldn't afford to take another hit in the back and had to break off the chase. He pulled up and found himself flying right into the remaining two TIE's. "Forward deflectors!" Wedge screamed, but Perry had no time to adjust as the two interceptors got off three clean shots on them.

Wedge was able to angle back down and to the left, but he felt a large explosion in the forward section of the ship. "Please tell me that wasn't a turbo laser."

"Front-right turbo laser," Perry responded morosely. They still had two amidship and one front-left, but they both realized it was only a matter of time.

"Hey!" Perry sounded suddenly, "We have company. Light transport, maybe private yacht, I can't really tell. It just got yanked out of hyperspace by the interdictor or the asteroid field."

"Any idea who it is?" Wedge asked, hoping for some type of luck as he took two more hits from the TIE's on his side.

"Probably just a trader, or some type of lost pirate. I've never seen this sensor echo before. It's heavily modified whatever it is."

Wedge had a slight reprieve in his evasive maneuvers and hazarded a glance at the sensor read out. He did a severe double take, which cost him another minor hit on the very depleted shields. "That's Jade's Fire!" he screamed. "Mara Jade, I love you." Wedge paused a while as he corkscrewed out of another trap the two blastboats had set for him, leaving Perry in the dark for a short while. "Send that ship a distress message. Make sure to use my name. Use this encryption on a narrow bandwidth." Wedge took one of his hands off the flight yoke to punch up an encryption that he knew Mara used.

Mara ran into the cockpit when she felt her ship drop out of hyperspace. "What's going on?"

"We're flying through some type of asteroid field that isn't on the star charts," Ra'tok explained.

"What asteroid field," Mara asked, looking out of the cockpit into space. She could just now barely see the sparse spread of rocks. "This shouldn't have taken us out of hyperspace unless we were on a direct collision course," Mara complained. "I think I need to tweak the hyperdrive a little, you and Chewie must have wrecked it when you butchered my ship a few days ago."

Ra'tok ignored her sarcasm for the moment. "We were also flying through the edge of a small interdiction field." Ra'tok pointed to the display, but didn't need to as Mara had already picked up the small space battle on her own.

"I have a funny feeling . . ."

"We're getting a transmission from one of the Skipray Blastboats," Ra'tok informed Mara. He took a moment to read it. "Do you know anyone named Wedge Antilles?"

Mara forcibly removed the Defel from the pilot's seat (something Ra'tok wouldn't admit to later) and took control. She examined the situation from a distance and saw that the interdiction ship was just sitting still on the outskirts, making sure that Wedge didn't escape. Mara concentrated on the odd shaped ship for a while, picking out a weakness in the hull. The engine seemed partially exposed from Mara's vantagepoint. The Imperial ships as a whole didn't pay any attention to Mara's ship, figuring the unknown trader would just continue on their way, realizing that this was not their fight.

Mara closed her hands around her torpedo trigger and spent a few moments in full, close-eyed concentration. She let two missiles go in close succession. Since she had not obtained an electronic lock first, but merely fired with the Force, the unsuspecting interdiction freighter was taken totally by surprise as the first projectile stole the shields from the vulnerable location and the second one struck home. The explosion severed coolant hoses and evaporated fuel lines. The engine compartment ruptured violently. Convulsions rocked the ship and cracked the oxygen reserve tank, flooding the reactor with liquid oxygen. The interdiction freighter was consumed in a very impressive fireball that quickly died in the unrelenting vacuum of space.

The explosion got the attention of all the ships in the area. Wedge was surprised by the explosion but knew immediately why it had happened. The Imperials, on the other hand, were dumbstruck for several seconds. They had to reason out why a random ship yanked out of hyperspace would simply jump into a deadly fray such as this. Wedge took this opportunity to rid the area of another one of the TIE Interceptors.

This second explosion brought the Imps back to reality and they realized that they now had two ships to battle. Jade's Fire had fresh batteries with the best armaments and shielding this side of the Millennium Falcon. One of the Skipray's decided to take care of this unknown assassin. It flew head on toward Mara, guns blasting. Mara had added a special feature to her front shields for just this type of confrontation. While most shield configurations form a semi-spherical bubble, Mara had installed a feature that allowed her to elongate the front of her shield, giving it an aerodynamic look. The result was that the shields were able to deflect the majority of head-on fire, absorbing very little of it.

Mara fired another torpedo, again without a lock, covering up the projectile with a volley of her own laser fire. The blastboat was awed at his opponent's audacity in not turning out of the head-on run after the initial volley. Surely no ship can go head on with a Skipray Blastboat. This thought kept the pilot from pulling out in time to avoid the volley of laser fire, trading the hits on full shields for the opportunity to release another of his own volleys at the intruder. Then the torpedo hit the depleted shields. Suddenly the blastboat was without forward stabilizers, and its second volley went wildly low as Mara pulled up out of the chicken run.

The crippled ship tried to pull up and follow Mara, but it only managed to bring itself back level as Mara came down from above, raining more laser fire and yet another torpedo. The ship had no stabilizers now and merely wafted listlessly in space. Mara ignored it, seeing that it was still undergoing inner convulsions and would probably explode in a couple seconds. It did just that as Wedge hit it with his own volley from below.

Wedge had a tail as he flew up underneath the doomed blastboat, and the exploding ship shielded that tail from seeing Mara's ship come off of her last run. Jade's Fire was able to strafe the blastboat's broad side as it pulled away from the explosion. The Imperial ship tried to corkscrew out of the line of fire and found Wedge's three still operating laser cannons at point blank range. The ship lost all stability under the fire and flew into one of the asteroids that hovered nearby.

The remaining TIE Interceptor saw that it was now pathetically out-gunned, and made a run to edge of the asteroid field, knowing that it could outrun Wedge and hoping that this other new ship didn't have any special engine modifications. It did. Mara caught up with the last ship and wasted him before he had a chance to send out a transmission to Pearson.

"Mara you have no idea how much I want to thank-you."

Mara looked at Wedge's beat-up ship, "No, but I could probably take a good guess. What brings you out here?"

"Are you aware of the galactic situation?" Wedge asked back.

"If you mean that Snotzenexer, former Imperial admiral, is now president of the Republic, yes I do. I also know that everyone who had some type of power, authority, or respect in the old system has been removed or eliminated. I guess that explains why you were being attacked, but not why you're out here."

"These asteroids around us are the remnants of the meteor shower that hit the Denorid system two or so weeks ago. We think that they were artificially put on a collision course with the planets of the Denorid system."

Mara thought about this for a while and an idea dawned on her. "You know that the system where Snotzenexer and his female admiral friend hale had a rather large asteroid field."

"The Varion system, yes, we figured the same thing. We were trying to get the general mineral composition of these asteroids and compare them with the ones in the Varion system. This of course requires a trip out there, unless you can give us some information. You were out there recently, weren't you?"

"Yea, but I can't really help you out, I was on a planet most of the time."

"Well, what are you doing out here?"

"I'm looking for the youngest of the Solo children. Do you know where I could find Anakin?"

Wedge thought for a while. "He's probably around the planet of Forinad. He and some other Jedi are trying to save that planet, but I don't think they're going to make it. Be careful though. Commander Pearson, formally of the Imperial Navy, is in command of the relief effort and don't be surprised if he gives you a hard time."

"I've spoken to him already. He gave me the run around when I asked to talk to Anakin. Wedge, before you head off to the Varion system, touch base with Yavin IV. That is our headquarters right now. It would be good if you could let Leia know you're okay and kind let everyone know where you're going in case we need to contact you."

"Headquarters? You're beginning to sound like Leia during the rebellion."

"It may come down to that eventually."

The two allies spoke a little while longer, wished each other luck, and then Mara left.

***

Jon Poncho, Vince Trimpo, and Bep Fritz were standing by the three Imperial TIE's: a bomber, interceptor and fighter. Each had their arms crossed over their chests and trying to look just a little taller than they already were. Victor Porcelian was just exiting the turbolift into the 185th's dungeon. Admiral Sanson was walking behind the new Imperial ace, smiling broadly.

Victor was not that intimidating, Vince saw immediately. The man was barely taller than the admiral and didn't appear to have one muscle on him. Vince disliked him right away. Jon had told his two friends how this pilot had won and they had unanimously decided that in real space, this pilot wouldn't last five minutes. He had obvious skill, there could be no denying that, but Vince was willing to bet that he had never seen combat. Until you experience a situation where more fighters leave the hangar then come back, you don't know what it's like to fly.

Victor walked right up to Jon, having been told against whom he had flown. "It was a pretty cheap victory, I know," Victor said. "The admiral here tells me that I can fly one of these things now, right?"

Sanson looked at Bep, redirecting the question at the trio's computer genius. "I've programmed all of the modifications into the simulator," Bep said.

"Why don't you tell me everything you've done?" Sanson asked, still not believing that these pilots would have actually improved the ships for the Empire.

"Well for starters," Vince began, "the hyperspace booster that you put in these babies was very crude. It could only be used as an accelerator before. Now we have installed a small nav computer. The ship still doesn't have hyperspace capability, but you can program your jumps ahead of time, instead of always having to go straight ahead."

"We weren't able to link the laser cannons directly to the engine like in our ships," Bep reported, "but we were able create a bypass switch on the laser batteries. The pilot can activate the bypass from the cockpit and the power from the engine will skip the laser battery and go directly into the cannons. This will allow you unlimited fire as long as the bypass is enabled."

"We also installed a tractor beam," Jon added, wanting to sound involved.

"What about the shields?" Sanson asked.

"What about them?" Bep replied. "They work. Your techs installed them and they operate as well as can be expected. They aren't as strong as they could be, but you are working with twin ion engines for a power supply, so don't expect too much."

Sanson nodded, still not sure that they had done all they bragged to have done, but she would see soon enough.

"How about linking the automatic pilot to the tractor beam?" Victor spoke up for the first time.

"What?" Vince asked. "Why would we want to do that?"

"It is required for a little maneuver I enjoy."

"Can you do it?" Sanson asked.

"Sure, I guess," Bep replied, making it known that he couldn't imagine why anyone would want such a thing.

"Do it," Sanson ordered. "I want the ability programmed into the simulator, and then Jon and our new friend Victor will have round two."

As the admiral and her new favorite pet were leaving, Jon turned to Bep. "You have my W-wing programmed in, right?"

Bep nodded slowly, smiling as he did. The new recruit didn't stand a chance.

***

The fighters were facing each other, starting this battle the same way that every other battle had begun. There was a difference to this battle, though. Each of the combatants were so intense that any normal joking that either of the young men might have been used to dispersing during other situations was totally forgotten.

The opening flurry of battle went much like a fencing match. Both pilots tested the limits the simulator allowed their nimble crafts, weaving in and out of each other's path and taking pot shots that did no real damage. Jon was amazed at Victor's ability immediately.

Normally a pilot's skill at flying a ship had very little to do with the outcome. When a sword fighter squares off against an opponent he is able to execute any maneuver he desires without the concern of a blown muscle or running out of energy. The physical body is a far better machine than a fighter is. A pilot is constantly faced with the limitations of his craft and the more advanced fighter, as opposed to the better pilot, usually emerges victorious.

The difference comes when the pilot realizes the limitations of his craft and instead of trying new move after new move begins to try and understand his opponent. Great pilots, like Wedge, Han, and Jon, excelled at being able to not only know their limitations, but those of their opponents. These three pilots also had the advantage of flying ships that were the best of their field. The X-wing might pale next to the E-wing and most definitely next to the W-wing, but it was the best ship of its time. The Falcon looked like a piece of junk and often broke down, but it had it were it counts. The W-wing was the best fighter ever to fly in the void of space, and Jon was the best W-wing pilot.

Now Jon was facing a new kind of ship and pilot. The idea behind the W-wing was to give the pilot no restrictions or limitations as to the maneuvers possible. It had a zero turning radius, in-system hyperspace capability, unlimited laser firing ability, the best sensors, and incredibly strong shields. The Empire had now adopted that philosophy as well. Though the new TIE had weaker shields and weaker firepower, it was also smaller and quicker, making it much harder to hit.

Jon and Victor continued their little sparring session for about three minutes before they broke it off. Neither of them had allowed the other to get behind them so they had only been taken passing shots. Now as they flew toward each other again, giving any observer the idea that they were simply going to exchange brief fire again, Victor angled down well before the intersection point, giving Jon the perfect opportunity to follow.

The tall pilot took the chance to get on the tail of the smaller ship, seeing no obvious trick at play. Jon was sure that Victor wouldn't try the same type of simulator trick that he had done before. Even with the simulated TIE dead ahead of the skilled pilot, Jon was not able to get a clear shot at the twisting and turning fighter.

Victor had wanted Jon behind him, confident that with the nimbleness of his fighter he would be able to avoid any of the W-wing's fire. The new Imperial recruit also wanted Jon to get frustrated. Instead of being frustrated, Jon became inventive. He quickly estimated Victor's next maneuver, figured out where it would take the TIE, programmed his nav computer, and executed a very short hyperspace jump.

Victor's sensors immediately told him that the W-wing had disappeared from behind him, and the Imperial quickly adjusted the sensors to a broader setting to pick up the illusive enemy craft. Jon popped back into real space in front of the TIE. The W-wing spun around like a top, still keeping its original momentum, which had it flying backwards as the two fighters faced each other.

Victor's hand flew from the sensor controls back to his flight stick but not before Jon was able to get two good shots on the TIE. This would have ended any other fight the Republic pilot had ever had against a TIE, but this modified fighter merely shuddered heavily as Victor managed to execute a limping, upward corkscrew.

Jon's awkward position of flying backwards took a moment to correct. The engines first had to stop the ship before it could accelerate in the opposite direction. This short delay gave Victor the opportunity to pull in behind the W-wing. Unlike the Imperial had done earlier, Jon allowed himself to get hit as he pretended to out maneuver his enemy. Though the action was opposite that of the earlier chase, it had the same philosophy behind it. Jon wanted Victor to get frustrated with both the strength of the W-wing's shields and the weakness of TIE's arsenal.

Though Jon allowed himself to get hit, he didn't let himself absorb constant fire. The shields were strong but if Victor had ever been able to get four quick hits in succession he would have found that the ship wasn't invincible. This little game continued for a short while until both fighters broke off. Whether Jon had finally lost his tail or Victor had simply given up the chase mattered little. Sanson and the rest of the 185th were watching and thought that this might have to end in a draw. Both fighters had been given the opportunity to hit their opponents and had failed.

Instead of giving up, Victor and Jon both realized that they would not win this fight through conventional means. They flew at each other again with Victor pulling out early once more. This time, instead of following the elusive TIE at the same speed, Jon punched his accelerator, hoping to narrow the gap between the two crafts.

Victor noticed the increase of speed and pulled up into a sharp assent. Jon followed as best he could at the speed he was maintaining. Halfway through the sharp climb Jon came up on the TIE very unexpectedly. He was heading toward it as if it wasn't moving, and a brief examination of the situation told Jon that that was exactly the situation. Victor had come to a full stop, wanting Jon to shoot past him. Jon thought it a risky move with very little possible gain. The TIE was in Jon's sights at point blank range for a split second and the pilot spared nothing, draining the smaller ship's shields and scoring a very damaging hit on the top back of the ship.

Jon was unable to do any more damage, having to veer to the side to avoid a collision. Victor was quick to chase, but Jon pulled a similar maneuver, slowing down and hoping that the over zealous pilot would accelerate right back into his sights. Instead, Victor pulled up right along side of the W-wing, flying in formation at the reduced speed Jon had initiated.

Jon took this brief reprieve to check his sensors. He had done considerable structural damage to Victor's TIE, and that spot of his ship would be vulnerable to any type of shot no matter the shield strength. Jon's sensors also told him that a tractor beam had locked onto his ship.

Jon looked out of his cockpit at the simulated image of the TIE, which was flying a few ship lengths away in perfect formation due to the strength of the tractor beam. For a moment Jon thought he could see Victor's grinning face in the computer generated cockpit of the TIE, but shook off the feeling, instead concentrating on what the crazy pilot was trying to accomplish from the insane maneuver. Sure the tractor could hold him at these reduced speeds, but the TIE didn't have half the mass of the W-wing and the hold would break during Jon's first skilled move.

Even as Jon punched the accelerator and twisted into a sharp bank, he remembered what Victor had requested of Bep. He had wanted the tractor beam linked to the automatic pilot. As soon as the tractor beam felt the slightest tug in a different direction, the autopilot would be able to mimic the move much faster than human reflexes would allow. Sure enough, the TIE stayed right with Jon through out his evasive tactics.

The tall pilot still couldn't figure out what Victor hoped to gain from this little trick. He might be waiting for the damage done to his craft to repair itself, but Jon knew that he had done permanent damage to the TIE that all the time in the world wouldn't fix. Neither of the pilots could fire at each other in this position with all of their weaponry pointing forward, unless . . .

Jon spun his craft again, taking advantage of the zero turning radius his independent engines offered him. He turned to face his adversary, flying sideways. There was only one problem: Victor was no longer there. Jon shifted his gaze briefly to his instrument panel as he executed the turn and then looked up into empty simulated space where a TIE should have been.

Jon had no time to contemplate the situation as his ship shook violently once, twice, and then a third. The third blast wasn't actually felt by the pilot in the simulator, but Jon knew there had been one as the computer turned off, telling him that he was dead.

Jon was slowly figuring out what had happened as the simulator replayed it for him. The only way to get out of the tractor lock was to turn to face his opponent. As soon as that had happened, Victor's TIE had executed a tight loop with the help of his hyperspace boosters and inertia dampers. Victor had to wait for Jon to turn because he needed to know exactly where Jon would be when his TIE pulled out of the maneuver. As before when Jon had flipped around, he would be vulnerable for a few seconds, unable to change course, until his engines were able to regain control from his momentum.

The TIE's loop had taken the smallest fraction of a second and Victor was presented with the broad side of the W-wing. The proximity was so close that the Imperial hadn't even needed a lock and simply fired three quick torpedoes, ending the fight.

Jon exited the simulator very slowly, not wishing to face the female admiral. Vince and Bep hung their heads in embarrassment for Jon's sake, not knowing how well their friend would take defeat. Sanson was practically glowing. "I don't think he abused the system that time, did he?"

Jon shook his head slowly, but Vince noticed something different about his friend's body language. Vince got the idea that Jon was suppressing a grin behind his faked sorrow. "He beat me fair and square this time, Admiral."

Sanson didn't need to hear anymore. She was far too excited to notice the subtle difference in Jon's posture and probably didn't know him well enough to have picked it up even if she had wanted to. Sanson exited the isolated chamber that housed the 185th members, making plans for the few cloning cylinders they had been able to salvage.

"What's up?" Vince asked as soon as Sanson had left.

Jon didn't answer but walked quickly over to the three ships that were sitting in their unusual quarters. He wheeled a portable ladder over to the back of the modified TIE and climbed to take a look. Bep was very familiar with the design of the ship and small smile began to grow on his face as well.

Vince wished desperately to be let in on the secret and raced over to have a look at the back of the TIE himself. The twin ion engines took up most of the room at the back of the pod, but if Vince remembered correctly, Jon had hit the ship in the simulator a little above the engines. Before the TIE had been featureless on the outside, simply a pod, two solar panels and an engine. Now, there was a small protrusion in the back of the ship. Vince looked carefully at the piece of machinery, remembered what it was, and immediately understood the joke.

"That's the inertial damper, isn't it?" Vince asked rhetorically. After all, he had installed it. "How well is the component layout represented in the computer simulation?"

"Not well at all," Bep replied. "I have no skill at graphics and left the old TIE exterior as is."

"In reality, after taking damage to the rear of his ship like Jon's opponent did . . ."

"The ship would have never allowed him to pull that maneuver at the end. Without a functioning inertial damper, the G-forces would have turned him into a quivering piece of flesh."

"Bep," Jon asked, doing his best to keep his voice straight, "could you do me a favor?"

"Already on it, good buddy," Bep replied.

"Remove the hyperspace safeties," Vince said aloud to himself.

Jon looked up from the TIE, happy that both his friends had been able to see the flaw in the simulator. "You, my good friend," Jon said across the ship to Vince, "can make yourself useful by figuring out a way to scan for breaks in an interdiction fields."

Vince looked hard at Jon. "Since when have you become the leader of this group?" he asked jokingly.

"Since I've become the one with all the good ideas."

All three friends laughed.

Chapter 12 "Looking for Someone"

"Jedi, there is something here to see you."

Anakin looked up from his bed at the officer standing in his door. He had just been meditating, trying to revitalize himself after a hard day in the medical frigate in orbit around Forinad. Anakin didn't recognize the officer, but he heard rumors that the new relief team that had come in a week ago was almost exclusively ex-Imperial and they were slowly infiltrating the rest of the operation.

"Who is it?"

"It did not give its name, only that it was imperative that it speaks with you."

Anakin didn't miss the officers distasteful pronouns used to describe his visitor. The Imperial's respect, or lack thereof, for alien races was very well known. The fact that his visitor was an alien piqued his curiosity. Chewie was the only person he could think of, and you wouldn't be able to drag him away from Leia right now.

Anakin uncrossed his legs and got up from his bed to follow the officer down the hallway. The trip to the receiving room of the frigate was short and Anakin ventured a look out one of the windows to see what ship was docked at this airlock. He recognized the Jade's Fire instantly, but didn't think that the officers would have referred to Mara as an "it."

Instead of Mara waiting for him in the reception room, Anakin saw a hairy alien, about one-point seven meters tall, wearing nothing but dark glasses. He stood calmly with excellent posture and had a very powerful aura about him. "Anakin Solo," he asked calmly, his voice sounding almost melodic.

Anakin nodded.

"You are to come with me."

Anakin looked back out the window at the Jade's Fire. "On that ship?" he pointed.

The creature in front of him nodded.

"The Jedi is working here and can not leave without authorization from Commander Pearson."

Anakin was about to try some hypnotic suggestion, though he didn't think it would work with more than five people present, but his visitor beat him to hit.

"He will come with me now," he said with a deep growl. The alien adjusted his glasses and showed everyone watching that he had very powerful claws. Anakin now understood what Mara was playing at. She was not as famous as Anakin or any of his family, but there was a chance that these Imperials might not have let Anakin go with her. With this creature, the Imperials had no idea what was happening.

"He is right," Anakin said to the officers. "I am supposed to go with him. I will stop off at Commander Pearson's command ship after I leave to make it official."

Anakin's new friend gave him a curious look at this last comment, thinking that this was the last thing they wanted to do. He thought twice, though, when he saw the officers' reaction to the comment. They ate it up - anything to get this . . . "thing" off their ship.

Anakin took Ra'tok with him to his quarters while he packed a few things. Everyone they met in the hallway gave the Defel a wide birth and Anakin began to respect Mara a lot more. No one would question him or ask what he was doing with this companion. After five short minutes of packing and a message left with one of the other Jedi there, Anakin was ready to go.

They walked back to the ship and boarded without incident. Mara was waiting in the cockpit for them. "Ra'tok, meet Anakin Solo. Anakin, meet Ra'tok, a Defel I picked up some days ago. He's my new copilot for a while."

"He's quite unique."

"That he is," Mara agreed.

"Don't talk about me as if I weren't here. I do understand Basic," Ra'tok pointed out, breaking what little ice there may have been between him and Anakin.

They hadn't gone far from the frigate before Anakin made an observation. "Do you know that you are carrying a tracking device?"

Ra'tok was utterly stunned, while Mara just smiled into her controls. "Mara hasn't explained the half of you, young Solo," Ra'tok burst out with a bark of laughter.

Mara waited until her copilot was finished before she spoke. "Do you think you can disable it?"

Anakin concentrated for a while, his eyes half closed. "Yes, do you want me too?" he asked feeling that Mara had something up her sleeve.

"Not just yet, Anakin, not just yet."

Before any of the rest of the ships in the Denorid system could try and delay the trio any longer, the Jade's Fire launched into hyperspace.

***

The Scavenger settled down a little awkwardly onto its designated landing platform. Eranadis hadn't fully mastered the unique instrument panel in the homemade ship and this was his first landing. The jolt when the front pilon hit the ground a little early shook the whole ship violently. Eran looked worried as he glanced back into the living quarters of the ship. He wasn't worried for the safety of the ship but of his passenger. The ludicrousness of his concern dawned on him immediately, and he focused on simply getting the ship down in one piece. He wasn't, after all, transporting a sick or sleeping passenger. Jaina was in stasis and probably impervious to anything save a blaster or lightsaber.

Eran still checked in on his human cargo briefly, making sure that the Jedi was strapped securely into her bed before he left the ship. Eran had been forced to park far away from the palace on Coruscant. The flight controller said there was some heavy legislation going down, and there were no spaces available within a thousand kilometers of the capitol building.

Eran locked down the ship and smirked at the hangar attendant as he approached to apply the normal security measures against ship vandalism. "Nice landing, bud," the middle age man said with heavy sarcasm.

"A repulser stabilizer blew out briefly," Eran responded, lying through his teeth. "You should feel lucky that I didn't take down this whole place."

The puff of black smoke that accompanied such a blowout had not occurred, and the attendant simply smiled at Eran, not wanting to get into a big debate. Eran didn't wait for the man to challenge his claim and made his way toward the nearest transport. While waiting for the bullet transit to the palace, he paid a few credits for a news chip and plugged it into the data pad he was carrying in his coat. His hand bumped against one of the two lightsabers suspended in his jacket and he remembered that he had to be cautious around security equipment.

Eran took a seat on a bench and began scrolling through the day's happenings. Eran's mouth almost opened wide enough for the bullet transit that was arriving to drive right in. The debate in the senate today was over the establishment of a health and drug administration within the Republic. The new administration would be responsible for galactic-wide distribution of rare medicine and health equipment to impoverished worlds in the Republic. If the proposal were passed, many worlds not in the Republic would have a very large incentive to join. The kind of health care that President Snotzenexer was implying could heal many war-torn planets.

That was the line that had opened Eran's mouth. "President Snotzenexer." Eran had been very out of the loop during his flight from the Solo twins and Tatooine was not the media hub of the galaxy. There were always such things as coincidences, Eran reminded himself, as he scrolled down the news report looking for a picture of the new president. President Alex Snotzenexer had smiled nicely for the image replicate and the picture was placed prominently towards the end of the report along with other big wigs in this debate.

Eran cared little for the actual debate but was overflowing with curiosity about the president. When Eran had last seen Snotzenexer he had been the admiral of a small fleet hiding in an asteroid field. Now in the span of about thirty days the man had become the most powerful being in the whole galaxy.

In front of him, the bullet transit left without Eran on it, but he hardly cared. The former Imperial agent was back at the news desk, asking for the news chips which contained the events of Snotzenexer's rise to power. Yesterday's news was very inexpensive, and Eran convinced the newsman to give him some of the two week-old chips for free.

Eran scrolled through the reports chronologically backwards of how Snotzenexer had become president. His nearly unanimous election was the first thing he glanced at, but saw nothing that could give him any information about any underhanded tactics. The previous event was Snotzenexer's financial miracle to save the Republic from ruin.

Eran looked at this report with intense interest. It had been his job to steal the financial records from the palace and then the economic disaster had happened just a little while after. Eran had a very good memory and saw that the natural disaster, which had forced the loan repayment from the Republic, had happened only four days after he had sent the stolen information to the admiral. Eran saw that hundreds of innocent people had lost their lives in that disaster. Eran had killed many people in his life, but had only ever killed out of necessity or when the other side was clearly in the wrong. Snotzenexer had killed innocents for financial gain.

There were reports from special probes into Snotzenexer's past as to how he had become a bank president. The report mentioned the terrorist attack on the entertainment franchise that Snotzenexer profited on. The media had called it a lucky guess, but Eran recognized it as the cold hearted murder of several hundred more people.

The real kicker, though, was when Eran read about the Denorid system. It was reported as a very unfortunate disaster. Eran remembered the numerous asteroids that had been in the huge hangar of the Super Star Destroyer. Eran had been thoroughly confused as to why the Imperial had the space rocks in the ship, but now saw them as more murder weapons. This time not killing hundreds, but billions.

Eran almost felt sick to his stomach as the facts became clear to him. He read about the exiling of Skywalker and the removal of the former president Leia Organa-Solo. He read about the recent report that the former head of the military, Admiral Wedge Antilles, and the person many people thought the admiral had been grooming for next in command, Captain Perry Tremon had stolen a military vessel and had destroyed a squad of ships sent to bring them back. Both men were now considered outlaws by the military and wanted for charges of treason.

What looked like just a stream of events in the news, appeared to the well informed agent as a very concerted effort to remove every last shred of the old power system and replace it with a new one.

What concerned Eran was that he couldn't figure out what Snotzenexer's true agenda was. Amidst the reports of natural disasters and terrorist attacks, Eran also read that Snotzenexer had saved an entire planet from a slow death at the hands of a former Imperial captain. He had then used the planet to set up new food trade routes that would feed trillions of hungry Republic citizens. Snotzenexer had set up a trade federation that had eliminated almost all of the trading tariffs that had stagnated the financial growth of the galaxy for almost twenty years. The new president had saved countless businesses during the brief economic crises, and as a result, brought prosperity where there had only been depression. Now he was forming a health and drug administration to vastly improve health care for countless malnourished planets.

It simply didn't make any sense for someone to kill several billion people to get to power only so he could save a few billion more. The end didn't mesh with the means. Eran looked at the reports again, trying to see what Snotzenexer was doing, but he didn't see a thing. Eran was bright. Some people might even consider him clever. He wasn't, however, an intellectual genius, and he was definitely nothing close to Snotzenexer's level. If the president had spent months planning and carrying out his plan for galactic domination, Eran did not expect he would be able to unravel it in just a few minutes reading the local news.

Eran looked up from his bench, wondering what to do now. He had planned to go to the palace to find the Solo family and return their daughter. He hadn't really thought what his story would be. He couldn't very well go up to Han Solo and tell him that he had his daughter with him. Telling the former smuggler he had killed his son and now his daughter was in a very unusual coma, and oh by the way, the financial disaster was my fault too, didn't seem like a very bright plan. Eran had planned on thinking up a clever story about how he had rescued Jaina from the clutches of the evil murderer, but now didn't even now if he would be able to find a Solo.

Eran watched as another bullet transit pulled up to the boarding platform. He decided that he would still go to the palace. Eran toyed briefly with the idea of setting up a meeting with the president to collect his fee for stealing the financial information, but decided against it.

Eran boarded the transit and took a seat by himself on the nearly empty car. Apparently everyone who was going to the senate hearing was already there. Eran began trying to figure out who he could talk to at the palace who still might be pro-Solo. Snotzenexer had likely replaced all of the key personnel in the palace that had had any important positions. Eran remembered how Jaina had been really friendly with one of the security guards in the palace, but Eran was more than positive all of the guards had been replaced with Imperials by now. The cleaning was usually done by droids. The bookkeepers and secretaries in the palace probably hadn't made that much contact with the presidential family and wouldn't be able to help him.

While Eran was thinking, his stomach rumbled at him. He hadn't eaten since he had left Tatooine, not knowing where the food stores were on the Scavenger. A bell went off in his mind. The cooks in the palace! Snotzenexer surely wouldn't have replaced them. The cooks had to have had a special relationship with the head family and might be able to know where he could find them.

Two hours later, Eran was driving a "borrowed" cargo car loaded down with frozen foods. He approached the south side of the palace where the loading docks were. There was a lot of commotion with other much larger cargo cars going in and out of the unloading area, dropping off every kind of consumable imaginable. Eran straightened his deliveryman uniform and approached the organized chaos on foot, leaving his cargo sitting away from the action.

Griping a data board in one hand, Eran made his way to an important looking person and announced his cargo. "Frozen meats and deserts for the palace." He got no reaction, as the man was busy yelling at someone who was backing up to the wrong dock. "I said that I had a shipment of beef and frozen dairy for the palace."

The man turned very briefly towards this intruder, simply to let Eran know his presence had been recognized. The man turned back to directing traffic and spoke over his shoulder. "Get in line like everyone else, buddy, and hope your creamed ice doesn't melt."

"I just want to know who's going to pay for this?"

The man looked back at Eran realizing he wouldn't be rid of this annoyance easily. "Get in line and we will pay you after unloading."

"Which line?"

The man sighed heavily. "Where are you from?" he asked looking down at his own data board.

"Bovine Buffet," Eran responded proudly.

"I don't see you on the list," the man responded, not sounding very surprised at the absence. It had been a hectic day.

"It was a rush order by the kitchen," Eran lied. "Something about a special meal they were planning."

"You mean the banquet?" the man asked as if it were the one thing in the whole world he despised most.

"I guess," Eran responded dumbly.

"You guess?! What do you think all this is for?" the man waived at the mess in front of him.

"Maybe I could just go to the kitchen and talk to the head chef myself to get this squared away."

"Sure, do you know the way?" the man asked, half expecting he already knew the answer. Eran shook his head. The man gave him brief directions and then ignored him, turning back to the docks were two cargo cars had just collided, one spilling its load.

Eran went quickly, glad to be away from the commotion. Once inside the palace, Eran slowed, not wanting to race past any security cameras that might recognize him. The former agent was known back home for his mastery of disguises but had not had time to don one now.

The kitchen was right where the dockman had said it would be. The cooks seemed almost as busy as the men back at the unloading station. Eran did a little casual snooping and found out that pending the passage of the health and drug motion, there was going to be a huge banquet tomorrow night to inaugurate the organization.

Eran didn't want to get in the way of the busy cooks, but managed to find the break-room where a few of the cooks were relaxing. Enroute to the kitchen, Eran had stopped at a refresher and removed his delivery outfit. He now posed as a news reporter with an advanced data pad and a scribe. "Excuse me," Eran spoke to the seated culinary experts, "I'm from the Republic Review and was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?"

"How'd you get in here?" one of them asked immediately. It wasn't an accusatory question, simply a curious one.

"Trade secret," Eran responded with his winning smile. "I was given the assignment of doing an interest story on the deposed president. It seems that after Organa-Solo was removed from office her family simply fell off the face off the galaxy. Some of our readers are curious as to what happened to their old leader." Eran paused, seeing how his audience reacted. "I haven't been able to find a Solo anywhere on Coruscant. I was wondering if you knew anything about where they went?"

Eran thought he caught a brief nostalgic look in one of the cook's eyes, and he knew he had them. "I haven't heard much either," a young woman said. "I heard that Leia left with her droids and Wookiee about a week and a half ago."

"You don't know where they went?" Eran asked.

The woman shook her head. An older gentleman spoke up, "I heard that Lando Calarissian, one of Han's old friends came to visit a while ago. I haven't heard anything about them leaving yet, but that doesn't mean they didn't, it just means we haven't heard about it."

"What about the kids?" Eran asked, already knowing most of the answer but wanting to look thorough.

"I think Anakin left about three weeks ago," another one of them said. "The twins have been gone for about as long. They made quite a scene when they left, from what I've heard, but I don't know where they went."

Eran paused in thought, wondering if there was anything these people would know. "Sorry we couldn't be more of a help," the woman said, "but we have to get back to work now."

Eran nodded slowly and walked back toward the dock. He stopped briefly to reaquire his uniform. "Sorry about the mix-up," Eran said as he reappeared on the unloading dock.

"What?" the man Eran had spoken to earlier responded.

"It was a mistake on our part," Eran responded. "Thanks for your help." Eran made his way back to his "borrowed" cargo car and drove it back to its proper place, hopefully before anyone had noticed it had disappeared.

The cooks hadn't given him a lot to go on, but he thought he might be able to track down the Calarissian lead. If he had landed a ship here and had not yet left, then there would be a record of his ship somewhere. Eran rode a transit back to his own hangar, wondering if the air traffic records were on public display or if he would have to fight another giant equipped with Mandalorian armor for them.

The hangar operator was fiddling on a land speeder, only his legs visible protruding from under the hovercraft. "Excuse me," Eran spoke up, getting the operator's attention, "I was wondering if the air traffic records for Coruscant were open to the public."

The operator, Benjor from the tag on his chest, slid out from underneath the speeder on his repulsor sled and got up. He reached for a rag and began rubbing some grease off his hands. "It depends," he said, dropping the tool he had been using into a drawer of his work station, "what do you want to know?"

"I'm just trying to locate a ship belonging to someone I know?"

"Anyone important?"

"Why does that matter?" Eran asked.

"Well, senators and important businessmen can purchase insurance against letting their ship locations be known to the public. You'd be amazed how many people feel that the public is out to get them. Otherwise anyone can usually access the records on their own if they go through the proper channels. So who are you trying to find?"

"I'm looking for a ship owned by a man named Lando Calarissian."

"Right over there," Benjor said, pointing the far corner of the hangar.

"What?!" Eran replied at the unexpected comment. He spun around and looked in the offered direction. An expensive space yacht was sitting quietly in the corner of the hangar. "That's his ship? Lando Calarissian's ship?"

"Is there something wrong with it?" asked Benjor.

"No, I just didn't expect it to be right here. I mean this is a big planet."

"I'm sure the flight controller told you that this was the closest port that wasn't owned by the government. The senators and visiting dignitaries filled all the government ones. The Republic actually moved Lando's ship here a few days ago. Apparently they needed to make room for someone else and this Calarissian fellow hadn't shown up in a while. If he's your friend, I'd like to meet him. He owes some back-pay."

Eran suddenly felt very unsafe. If the government had moved the ship here, that meant Snotzenexer had moved it. Snotzenexer had to know that Solo and Calarissian had teamed up to do what ever it was they were doing. In fact it might even be that knowledge of Snotzenexer that had kept Solo and Calarissian away for so long. Regardless, if Snotzenexer wasn't sure Solo was disposed of, he would be watching this ship to see when the husband of the former president returned. If Snotzenexer was watching, Eran was visible. It was more likely that the busy president had someone else watching the security tapes for him, someone who knew what Solo looked like but not necessarily what Eran looked like.

"Is there a hotel in the area?" Eran asked, thinking that he wanted to hang around this hangar and do some thinking.

"Sure," Benjor responded, leading Eran to the large entrance of the hangar. "That high rise right there," he said, pointing to the nearest tall building. "They should have a few vacancies."

"Thanks a lot," Eran replied. He made his way to the building, got himself a room, started thinking, and basically just waited for something to happen. He only had to wait about an hour.

Chapter 13 "Enacting Justice"

Han and Lando walked on the upper levels of Coruscant, still feeling very weak in their legs. Their escape from the underworld had taken a major delay after their initial dash. Han and Lando had rested and slept for almost twelve hours straight before waking up in hot fevers.

Han had been sick before and always found that his wife, or even one of his kids had been able to use their Force abilities to guide him to a quicker than normal recovery. Trince had been worse than useless. He had not wanted to help at all, only wishing to be on with their journey to the surface. The Jedi had in fact almost cursed his companions' weakness as they lay in their own feverish sweat, panting for each breath.

When finally Han had convinced him to use his Force skill to aid him, the well-traveled smuggler had had one of the most disturbing experiences of his life. It was like he was back in the freezing chamber on Bespin again, only instead of his body freezing into stasis, his soul felt drained of all its inner heat as the Jedi worked on him. Han had been able to break free of the "healing trance" the Jedi had induced after feeling the first effects of the pathetic effort.

Trince had seemed almost happy it had not worked, muttering something about him being a warrior and not a physician. Lando had recovered within a day and a half, but Han took three days before he was able to move again. Han and Lando both thought that Han's slower recovery was do in most part to Trince's failed attempt at healing him.

As they walked up to the surface over the next two days, Han required several stops for rest and water. Each of the stops, Trince begrudgingly accepted, all the while cursing the delays. Lando had become friends with Trince in the short time he had known the Jedi, but now he was beginning to wonder what kind of "friend" would act the way he was. Han had a better knowledge of Force users than Lando did, having raised three of them from childhood and having grilled Luke constantly, insuring that his kids wouldn't turn into Siths.

Han knew that Trince was acting like someone possessed by the Dark Side. "Possessed" seemed like an odd way of stating it, but Han could think of no other way to describe the change that the Jedi had undergone. Something terrible had happened to Trince as he had laid in the underworld for the week he had been missing. Something so terrible that it had transformed him into a bottle of rage so furious that he disregarded the needs of his friends.

Han had seen this kind of behavior before. He had known people who had suffered through deaths of loved ones. Those people had insisted on placing blame on something but circumstances had been such that blame could not easily be placed one specific item or person. When people had died during the Rebellion, some rebels would be so outraged at the injustice that they would lash out at anything in their path, wishing to repay violence with violence. In most cases, these outraged people would find a way to get themselves in a fighter or in the front lines against the Empire. They would almost always die trying to make the enemy repay some debt it owed. Instead of repaying a debt, the thoughtless, heartless Empire would merely take another life.

Trince was acting much like those rage filled rebels. Some injustice had fallen upon him and he was searching for the guilty party. Han was worried that in this case there was no guilty party, and the Jedi would simply lash out at the first available party. Han just wished that no one he cared about would end up available.

They were making their way to the palace now, or, more appropriately, the palace's private hangar reserved for the Solos' ships. The security station at the entrance of the hangar recognized Han, but didn't allow entry. "I'm sorry, Solo, but this area is restricted. No civilians are allowed."

"Civilian?" Han balked. "I was the husband to the Chief of State, and before that a General in the Republic."

"You are neither of those things now, sir," the man replied.

"Regardless," Lando piped in before Trince could yell a fowl retort at the guard, "my ship is parked in this hangar and I wish to retrieve it."

"Your ship has been moved, to-"

"You moved my ship?!" Lando interrupted.

"It has been moved to a civilian hangar," the guard informed the enraged gambler. "Your ship has not been vandalized in any way, however you will owe a dock fee when you retrieve it."

Han, the only cool head in the bunch managed to get the hangar's location off of the guard, thanked him, and led the trio away.

***

"A lot has changed while we were away," Lando said as they sat in a transit. Han had gotten a news data card and had shown it to Lando. Lando and Han were seated in the transit while Trince paced, fuming at no one in particular. "This Snotzenexer seems to have solved all the problems. Kind of makes our whole ordeal pointless, doesn't it?"

This was a bad comment to make, Han knew. Trince heard the comment, and it did nothing to improve his mood. The fact that he had been tormented unjustly was already a big problem, but now the whole trip that had put him that dreadful situation to begin with had turned out to be trivial.

"Still," Han pointed out, "there are quite a few things for this Snotzenexer to work out. The Denorid system is still a problem. He has a military that is too small to protect his vast holdings. Plus, it looks like he is starting to get his first opposition from the public," Han added, indicating the debate that was going on in the senate chamber at that moment.

"Where do you think Leia went?" Lando asked.

"It's not even a question," Han answered. "She went to Yavin IV. It's the only home she knows of away from here. We talked about going to Corellia, but without me, she'd be lost on the planet."

"We're going to the Academy then," Lando said unnecessarily.

"Not the Academy," Trince spoke for the first time in a while, his voice almost a growl.

"Why not?" Han asked, challenging the surly Jedi for the first time, confident that Trince wouldn't make a move against him.

"They are a bunch of pacifists. We need to act. We need to go to the source of the trouble."

"What trouble?" Lando asked. "Nothing is wrong."

"Can't you feel it?" he asked, looking right at Lando. The old gambler shook his head. Han also, in turn, shook his. "Something is very . . . not right here - everywhere. Something has gone terribly wrong and no one is doing anything about it. We will not also sit by and watch the whole galaxy go down to hell."

Han wanted to put his hand on the temperamental Jedi's shoulder, but didn't dare. "You have been through a lot," he said slowly, choosing his words carefully, "more in fact than a human should have to go through. I'm sure you are feeling more pain and anguish than you can rightly explain. But what ever the problem is I'm sure Luke can heal-" oops wrong word.

"No more healing!" Trince shouted, drawing the attention of the rest of the passengers on the car. "No more meditations! No more seeking guidance through the Force! The galaxy - the Force itself - has been polluted with some great evil that no meditation or trance can fix. It has to be removed by force. Like a cancerous tumor, it must be eradicated from the universe. The Jedi must do this. They are the only ones who can do it. It is what they were meant to do from the beginning of time. Now is the time for action - for retribution."

This last word scared Han enough that he tried one more time. "Are you sure your vision is not clouded by the pain? Could you-"

"Could I be mistaken?" Trince's voice was quieter again, but much more insane. He had the wild look in his eye that inspired nightmares in children for years on end. "Could I be mistaken? Could you be mistaken? Could Luke, Yoda, Windu or any of the others have been mistaken? What of the gods themselves, if there are any. Could they have been mistaken? Could we have been placed in this galaxy by mere chance, making not only our recent trip pointless, but in fact our whole existence trivial? Is there a better reason that good should triumph over evil other than it allows a happy ending for a child's bedtime story? Could there be some underlying meaning of life that has nothing to do with good, evil, the Light Side, the Dark Side, life, or death and instead have everything to do with the amount of nerf steak we eat in our lifetime? Could I be mistaken?" Trince's voice now dropped below a whisper, but had a rasp to it that allowed everyone on the transit the privilege of hearing what he had to say. "Yes, I could be mistaken, but I hope, for the sake of life as we know it, that I am not."

Han decided that it would probably be best if he didn't try to cheer up his friend anymore. The rest of the trip was very quiet; Han and Lando looked straight ahead while Trince paced.

The trip lasted only a few minutes, and the hangar in question was found easily enough. Han thought that after Trince's outburst in the transit, nothing would be able to surprise him anymore. He was quite mistaken. After talking to the hangar owner, and being told that someone had been looking for him and Lando, Han was allowed into the hangar. There, sitting in the middle of the building was his children's ship, the Scavenger.

"The person who was looking for us flew this here?" Han asked Benjor.

The operator nodded. "Yea, he said that he was looking for you and that he would be staying in that hotel over there." Benjor pointed toward the building in question.

"What did he look like?" Lando asked.

"He was a little taller than you two and probably half your age. He had dark hair. He looked pretty agile too. It was in the way he moved, like a professional athlete or something. You know, he walked like he was confident of everything he did."

Han couldn't think of anyone like that. Jacen was more than just a little taller than either Han or Lando. None of the other Jedi students that his kids had been friends with had that kind of presence that this man was talking about. They would just have to find out.

Fifteen minutes later the three of them were standing outside Eran's hotel room door. The chime sounded inside the room and Eran asked who was there. "It's Han Solo and Lando Calarissian," Han said. "We understand that you want to see us."

Eran paused before he remotely opened the door. This was the moment he had dreaded. He had decided to tell them the whole truth. There was no real point in holding it back. If he was going to help Han and his friends strike back at Snotzenexer he would need to be honest with what he knew. Whether he lied or told the truth, Jacen Solo would not be coming back. "Come in."

The door slid open revealing a third and unidentified member of the group. Eran suddenly tensed in his chair, his lightsabers making their weight against his chest very present to him, as if warning him of action. This third member of the party had an aura about him that screamed out danger. Eran suddenly had great doubts about telling the whole truth. The former agent looked briefly around the room he was in, making sure he was familiar with what might turn into a battleground. The room was rather small. He was sitting in the only chair up against the wall facing the door. To Han and his associates' right was the holo-vid and to their left was a clothes dresser. To Eran's immediate right was his bed, underneath the only window in the room. Then further on his right was the doorway to the refresher and a closet.

"What do you want?" Han asked, tensing his own muscles at the reaction Eran had given the group.

"I have information that you desperately need," Eran said slowly, keeping his eyes on Trince.

"Concerning what?" Lando asked.

"Concerning many things. Such as Snotzenexer's past, his rise to power, his possible agenda, and also," Eran swallowed hard as he looked at Han, "your children."

"You stole their ship," Han stated carefully. "What happened to them?"

"Jaina is with me. She seems to be in some sort of coma. Jacen, is, well . . ."

"He's dead," Trince spoke, his eyes boring a whole into the seated man in front of the trio.

"What?!" Han screamed, not wanting to believe this. His eyes darted between Trince and Eran for confirmation.

Eran nodded slowly, wondering how to continue. "He and I, well, we . . ."

"You killed him," Trince said, his voice suddenly getting much lower and guttural.

Han really didn't know what to do. A minute ago he was the father of three and now he suddenly found out that his oldest son was dead, his daughter was in a coma and this man in front of him had been responsible. Ever since he had joined the Rebellion some thirty years ago, Han had never really been rash, but now he had a sudden flush of rage run through him.

Eran saw Han draw his blaster so fast that the former agent almost didn't have enough time to get away. Eran leaped from his chair over the foot of his bed just as a blaster bolt tore the stuffing out of the chair.

Han had not really intended to fire, but Eran's sudden motion had startled him. Han gathered his wits about him and merely aimed his weapon at the prone killer. Eran had grabbed at the first thing his hands had touched for some type of protection and now held one of his pillows in his right hand as a pathetic type of shield. "What happened?" Han asked, believing that there was definitely extenuating circumstances surrounding his son's death or this man would not have so freely told him.

Eran didn't really have a chance to speak. Trince literally threw Han and Lando out his way as he stepped through the pair toward Eran. The Jedi had his lightsaber ignited and stared demonically at the killer. "No more talk," his voice was now that of a nightmarish fiend from the pit of hell. "No more discussion. Now we have retribution."

Eran had two lightsabers; this Jedi had one. This Jedi's stance spoke volumes of his fighting prowess, and after fighting Jacen, Eran was not impressed. The room was small and not good for lightsaber battle, favoring Eran immensely. With all these benefits, Eran should have been confident about the upcoming scuffle. With one look into the bloodshot eyes of Trince Alinter, Jedi Knight, Eran was terrified.

The former government special agent had never run from an equal fight before, but he ran now. Before anyone else in the room could make a move, Eran turned toward the window at the foot of his bed, bringing his right fist into the window. With the pillow protecting his hand, he smashed through the glass like it was paper-thin. Trince was shaken out of his stationary pose and rushed at the bed three meters away.

Eran had grabbed a hold of the top of his bed sheet with his left hand before he had begun turning and now jumped out of the window with the sheet trailing behind him. Eran looked at the permacrete surface below him some twenty stories down and hoped this would work. The bed sheet became taunt momentarily as it reached its length, tucked into the bottom of the bed. Trince saw the sheet become tight and cut the lifeline with his lightsaber even as the sheet loosed itself from under the bed due to the weight of the leaping Eran.

The sheet had become tight enough, though, to impale itself on the broken shards of glass sticking up from the bottom pane of the window, giving Eran just enough resistance to swing back to the building. His feet were aimed at the window in the identical hotel room bellow, and he crashed through just as his glass shard anchor broke away from the window sill above him, letting the sheet follow him into the room.

"Please tell me you didn't break another one of the hotel's expensive glass vases, dear." Eran rolled into the room, becoming momentarily entangled in the bed sheet. His head came up fast, and he found himself looking at a very startled middle aged man reading in a chair. "Honey, did you break something?" Eran spun around to face the voice that came again and saw a towel clad woman rubbing her hair with a second towel emerging from the refresher. "Hun, what's going on?" she asked. Then she saw that there was a strange man under the bed sheet on the floor, the edge of which was still smoldering from Trince's lightsaber. "Eeek! Get out!"

Eran picked himself up quickly, noticing oddly that the man still hadn't moved from his chair. He raced over to the door and made a hasty exit, leaving the sheet behind. The husband simply went back to reading his data scroll, leaving the wife to gape at their hotel room floor and broken window. She ran after Eran, emerging in the hallway and yelling after the retreating vandal. "Come back here! We're going to have to pay for this, you know!"

The wife looked back into the room, noticing that her husband was giving her no help at all. "Well, Harold, aren't you going to catch him."

Without looking up from his reading he spoke. "I noticed how you immediately assumed that I was at fault when you heard the window shatter."

"What?!"

Eran left the couple behind and made his way to the lift. They would expect him to go down, Eran thought of his pursuers, assuming they were going to give chase. Since he was already a floor bellow them, it only made sense for him to increase his lead. Instead, Eran took the lift to the roof, knowing that with the constant growth of Coruscant, rooftops were often turned into streets.

One floor up, Trince led the trio's race to the nearest turbo lift. They had all stuck their head out the window and saw what had happened to the killer, and immediately decided to try to catch him. Trince stopped short in front of the lift as his eyes followed a path up the shaft behind the closed doors. "He's going up," Trince said. Not waiting for Han or Lando to agree with him, he looked around the hallway. At one end he saw a staircase and made for it with Force enhanced speed. Han and Lando looked at each other, not wanting to climb the ten flights of stairs to the roof, and instead ran around a corner in the hallway, looking for another lift.

Eran stepped out onto the roof just as Trince burst through the service door. The two exits were right next to each other, placing the two potential combatants at arm's length. Eran was the quicker and kicked out with his foot, catching Trince in his chest. As Trince landed hard on his back, Eran raced in the opposite direction.

There was a walkway connecting this building with the one next to it, and Eran made his way to it. The hotel was the taller building, and the walkway had a dozen stairs in the middle of it. It was noon with the sun straight up in the sky, and as Eran skipped down the stairs, he saw a shadow pass over head. The trained fighter didn't question his instincts and halted his rapid descent, letting Trince land in front of him.

The walkway was wide enough for three people to walk abreast with Eran standing next to one of the railings. Trince was the only one of the two who had a weapon drawn, and he swung it at his defenseless opponent. Eran anchored his hand on the railing and flipped backward up the stairs. Halfway through his flight, Trince's lightsaber cut through the railing supporting his enemy's flip. Eran was inverted when the railing went and came crashing down on his shoulders.

Eran reacted quickly, rolling to the side, and lifting his legs up into a backward somersault. Trince swung at the agile agent's legs, cutting through the walkway instead, as Eran rolled out of the way. The walkway groaned heavily under the weight of the two fighters as one of the railings, and most of the walkway had been destroyed. Eran felt the groan and his very vulnerable position. He started scrambled back up toward the safety of the hotel roof just as Trince cut through the other railing. Eran saw the shadow pass over him back to the high roof as the walkway sagged drastically in the middle.

There was still about half a meter of steel left in the walkway, but it was slowly tearing, as the weight of the stranded agent was too much. Eran glanced back over his shoulder at the tear and was reminded that he was thirty stories above the permacrete bellow. Eran looked back up the increasing slope between him and the hotel roof and saw Trince guarding the roof with a glowing sword and an evil grin.

Eran felt the remaining section of the walkway rip down to only a few centimeters and swallowed hard. The endangered agent tensed his legs and leaped backward just as the walkway gave way. The section he had just been on pivoted on its anchor point at Trince's feet and slammed hard into the hotel's outer wall, shattering the few windows in its path. Eran turned over in the air and landed on the other section of the walkway. Trince had cut the bridge off-center, and the majority of the structure now hung from the hotel.

Eran's new perch also began to swing down under his weight. It had been angled upward toward the higher hotel roof, though, and only passed level as Eran scrambled onto the lower roof. Eran looked back at Trince and saw that he was tensing to jump across the fifteen-meter gap. Eran drew both of his lightsabers, looked at the leaping Jedi's flight path, and hacked up the edge of the building where it looked like Trince would land.

Eran stepped back as his opponent landed hard on the weakened roof. The permacrete crumbled away under Trince's feet and his lightsaber left his hand, the deactivated weapon skittering on the roof past Eran's feet. Trince was dangling by his fingertips over the huge drop; the broken bits of permacrete still falling bellow him. Eran took a step closer to him and saw Han and Lando on the hotel's roof, watching the encounter. "I killed Jacen Solo only in self defense," Eran said loudly enough for Han and Lando to hear but looking right at Trince as he hung on for dear life. Both of Eran's lightsabers glowed threateningly over Trince, not allowing him any room to flip up.

"You could have never killed Jacen in self defense," Trince said, his voice still low and guttural. "He was the best fighter in the Academy."

"I've beaten you, haven't I," Eran said to the apparently defeated Jedi.

Eran heard the snap-hiss of the dropped lightsaber as it came to life behind him. Eran dove to his side and came up rolling. He looked back to where he had been standing and saw the lightsaber complete it revolution, the blade a few centimeters off the ground. Trince had tried to chop Eran down at his ankles.

The Jedi was now able launch himself up from his precarious position on the side of the building, and his lightsaber leaped into his hand. Eran was still in a crouch, both lightsabers drawn and ignited. "I don't want to kill you too," Eran said, trying to sway the Jedi from his attack.

"Don't worry," Trince replied with deadly calm, "you won't."

The Jedi charged screaming with his blade high over his head. Eran could have killed him right here. Trince's entire body was exposed under the upraised lightsaber. Instead, Eran made a strike at Trince's exposed legs, hoping to cripple him. Eran had to roll to the side to avoid the potential downward strike. Trince had other ideas. Instead of coming down with the expected overhead chop, he brought the weapon down sideways, swinging in front of his body like a smashball player reaching for a low, inside pitch. Trince connected with both of Eran's blades before they hit his legs and sent them in the opposite direction that Eran had been rolling.

The resulting impact and change of momentum flipped Eran on his back. Han and Lando now watched in amazement as this newcomer fought off Trince's fiery assault while lying on his back. The Jedi's weapon was longer than either of Eran's, and Trince stood at the fallen fighter's head to keep him from getting up.

Eran's reactions were put to the test as sparks from colliding blades showered down on top of him. The skilled fighter finally managed to get one of his blades to threaten Trince's legs, and the Jedi had to step around to Eran's feet. The prone fighter then lashed out with his foot, trying to trip his standing opponent before Trince could attack his exposed legs. The Jedi again moved, this time taking a step back and swinging at the offered leg. Eran drew his leg back, kipped to his feet, and met the swing with one of his own blades.

Both fighters were standing now and Eran pressed the attack, two blades against one. Han and Lando thought the fight would soon be over as Eran worked the out-matched Jedi toward the center of the roof. Trince's back suddenly came in contact with a stack of permacrete blocks. Like Eran before him, Trince now had to fight off attacks with his back pinned. Both observers from the hotel roof could tell that Eran did not want to kill the over zealous Jedi, for he had many opportunities. Instead, the superior fighter tried to knock Trince out, often leading a strike with the handle of his weapons.

Trince had had enough of the mercy fight and looked for a short reprieve in the action. He found one as his blade intercepted a side attack and he ducked under a high punch. Trince's empty hand shot out toward Eran's chest, but the cautious fighter, stepped back out of the arm's range. The attack had not been a punch though, and an invisible Force wave lifted Eran off his feet and through him four meters back.

Eran got up, much more wary of his opponent. He watched as one of the permacrete blocks wiggled itself free from the pile behind Trince and flew towards him. It wasn't moving fast, and Eran sidestepped it easily. He looked back at the Jedi and saw that more of the blocks were loosening themselves from the wall. Three of them came at once and Eran had to bat one of them aside as he dodged the other two. Now more blocks came and at an increased rate. Inside the flow of permacrete stepped Trince.

Eran was dodging frantically and swinging wildly as he watched the concentrating Jedi approach in the midst of the hailstorm. The blocks passed just under his arms and just over his shoulders. They flew through his legs and over his head. Trince raised his lightsaber, stepped into range of the heavily taxed fighter, and gave Eran something more to worry about.

Trince's attack routines were not too complex, but anytime there was an opening in his defenses, a huge block came flying at Eran, either intercepting his attack, or causing him to dodge back. Eran slowly tried to work Trince into a rhythm, forcing the Jedi to have openings for a permacrete block when Eran was ready for them. To Han and Lando, the display looked truly extraordinary. Two people were fighting on the rooftop with a pile of permacrete blocks five meters away raining horizontally on them. Eran was moving so fluidity that every motion either deflected a lightsaber, a block, or moved him out of the line of fire.

Trince felt the rhythm too and became enraged. He didn't even use his empty hand this time as he hurled Eran away from him. All of the blocks suddenly dropped out of flight, crashing and skidding on the roof. Eran flew to the edge of the roof, and his lower back collided hard with the twenty-centimeter ledge that surrounded the rooftop. Eran got to his feet quickly, very aware of his proximity to the long fall, and braced himself against the ledge by placing his left foot on it.

Trince didn't advance, but merely pointed at Eran with his index finger at an arm's length, his palm facing up. The Jedi slowly curled his finger up into his fist, and Eran could feel himself growing lighter as if the Jedi's finger was lifting him by his chin. His right foot left the roof and joined his left on the ledge. Trince curled his finger all the way back to his waiting thumb, turned his wrist over, and flicked out with his cocked finger.

Eran saw the motion and understood the implication. He braced himself for the force wave, but it came as only a slight shove in his chest. Eran leaned backwards as he absorbed the Force wave, his arms waving violently at his side. The lightsabers in his outstretched arms were making large, blue circles in the air, as he resisted the urge to look at the empty space behind him. Eran hung at the odd angle briefly, before tumbling backward off the ledge.

Even at their great distance Han and Lando watched the moment of realization pass over Eran's face before he tumbled from sight. Han and Lando also saw Trince in their wide view. The disturbed Jedi reveled in that moment of power. The moment in which he held Eran's life in his hands. He had held his cocked finger in position a few tantalizing seconds before flicking Eran off the ledge. As the doomed man had waived his arms around, trying desperately to keep from falling, Trince had smiled.

Now, Trince didn't even bother to look over the ledge at his crumpled victim lying on the permacrete below. He simply attached his lightsaber to his belt, walked over to the hotel side of the smaller building, and casually leaped across the great expanse.

"You didn't let him tell you where Jaina is or how Jacen died," Han said, trying to keep his voice calm.

Trince walked past the two men, heading toward the lift doors at center of the hotel roof. "Jaina is in her ship," he said over his shoulder. "He murdered Jacen to claim her for his own."

Something about this didn't make any sense. "But he said she was in a coma."

"She is in her ship," Trince repeated.

"But how did Jacen die?!" Han shouted, getting tired of the Jedi's aloof behavior.

Trince turned violently away from the lift doors and stared hotly at Han, who had walked up behind him. "I can not bring your son back from the dead. Not even your friend, the supreme Luke Skywalker can do that. All can I do is see that his killer is punished, and he has been."

"Who made you the judge, jury, and executioner?" Han asked, finally willing to face down this wayward Jedi.

Trince turned all the way around. "He admitted to the crime. You even fired at him. I can't believe you are trying to defend the man who killed your son in cold blood."

"If he had done that, I don't think he would have admitted it. Why would he bring my daughter back to me and admit to killing my son if he didn't have a good reason for doing so?"

"I did what I felt I had to. It is done. It can not be undone."

The lift doors opened and Trince walked into them, but Han thought other wise. He grabbed his shoulder and spun him back around. "You did what you felt you had to do, huh? What did you feel? Hate? Anger? Animosity? What do you feel now? Satisfaction at a man well killed? Exuberance in being able to hold his life in your hands for a few brief moments before pushing him into death?"

"You know not of what you talk! You have no idea what that moment before death means. Have you ever teetered on the edge of death knowing it would come and only having to endure the wait? I'm not talking about close calls in an asteroid field, or racing through a hallway just ahead of enemy blasters. I'm talking about death as sure as gravity. Death as certain the morning sunrise. That moment of realization has been visited upon me long enough to account for a million deaths like the one you witnessed. Don't talk to me about what you don't understand."

Han had nothing to say, but Lando had been listening to the conversation, figuring out what had happened. "That's what you did then, isn't it? You repaid him," Lando gestured toward the other building's ledge, "what had been given to you. Do you feel better now? You said that you endured a million such deaths. Will you then seek the blood of a million victims before the well of anger in your soul is emptied? You could care less about Jacen and seeing his murderer punished. You simply struck out at the first life that presented itself to you with a valid excuse for your actions."

Han jumped into the lecture. "If you hadn't noticed, he held your life in his hands as well. I don't know if you were so wrapped up in your hate to see, but he could have struck you down several different times during that fight but decided not to. Would someone who had killed my son in cold blood do that?"

"Is someone who would rather see the truth be known than cut down someone he holds no grudge against worthy of what you gave him?" Lando asked. "There is no one person who is responsible for what you went through under this city. No matter how long you look, you will only ever find more semi-valid targets like the one you just threw off a building. Targets that you might be able to validate killing in your warped mind, but none of their deaths will ever drain a drop from your penned up hate. Every one of their deaths will only make it that much easier to validate killing your next victim. Is that what you want to do? Do you want to kill everyone in search of the possible source of your anguish?"

Trince remained stoic under the criticism. "Are you two finished now?" Getting no immediate response, Trince motioned to the still open lift. "Good. I believe your daughter is awaiting our arrival."

The ride down the lift was quiet, the whirring of the lift's repulser making enough noise for everyone aboard. The trio made their way toward the hangar with the Lady Luck and Scavenger. "Did you find your friend?" Benjor asked politely.

Han nodded.

"Where is he?"

"We dropped him off somewhere," Han responded as he made his way to his children's ship. Under the front pilon, tucked behind some wires and hydraulic houses was a small switch. Han flipped the switch and the outer door to the ship lowered to the ground. Lando let Han enter first, keeping Trince behind him with a strategic positioning of his body.

Han went straight to the sleeping quarters on the ship and found his daughter strapped to her bed. He knelt down next to her, not showing any outward emotions but inwardly screaming to hold her in his arms. Jaina's face was filled with color; her hair still held its moist sheen. Han could feel the heat from her body at his close proximity, but as he crouched next to her for a minute, he never once saw her chest rise in a breath.

The father put his head on his daughter's chest and listened patiently for a heart beat. He placed his fingers on her wrist but couldn't find a pulse. A tear slowly made its way down Han's face as he looked at his oldest child's face, wondering what had happened to her. He had to agree with Eran that Jaina did still seem alive, but exactly what had happened was a mystery. If Trince hadn't been so swift with his "justice" . . .

"She still lives," Trince said from behind the two men. Han was too absorbed with his daughter, but Lando noticed something different in the Jedi's voice. Trince's employer turned to look at him and saw that his face showed a new emotion - sorrow, regret, apology - Lando couldn't tell. Apparently their little speech back on the roof had had some effect. "I can try to revive her."

Han had remembered Trince's attempts at healing him back in the underworld. There was about as much chance of Trince getting his Force sensitive fingers on Jaina right now as there was of Eran surviving his fall. "No," Han replied, trying to keep the anger out of his voice and not entirely succeeding. "We will take her to the Academy."

Lando expected another sarcastic comment from Trince about how great Luke was, but the Jedi held his tongue. Lando noticed that he had to bite his lip to do it, but Trince let the vote of no confidence in his Force ability slip by.

"Well, Trince," Lando said, trying to get this awkward scene to the next stage, "why don't you come with me to the Lady Luck and see if Snotzenexer's boys messed it up any."

Han thanked Lando silently for taking responsibility of the Jedi, not wanting anything to do with him for a while. "Race you to Yavin IV, buddy," Lando threw at Han as he left the Scavenger.

Han leaned over and kissed Jaina before getting up and making his way to the cockpit. Han soon saw that he was going to win the race because Lando had to settle a price feud before he could take off.

Chapter 14 "Avoiding Conflict"

While Eran, Han, Lando, and Trince were scuffling outside of the palace and the adjoining senate chambers, Snotzenexer and the bacta powerhouses were scuffling inside. Xucphra and Zaltin had decided to not go down quietly. The two companies, especially Harmeon and his minions from Xucphra, had lobbied for the rejection of this bill so much that there wasn't one senator that had not heard their side of the story. The real problem was of course what their side of the story was going to be.

Snotzenexer was proposing the creation of an organization to distribute medicine, vaccines, and health care equipment to the uncared for and war-torn planets in the Republic who can't get these supplies on their own. Snotzenexer also wanted to make the medicines that had only been available to the military, available to anyone anywhere and he wanted to do it in such bulk that prices weren't a problem. This plan, if it were successful would virtually end almost all viral epidemics and drastically reduce unnecessary death and suffering in the galaxy. It would do all this and also make everyone involved an awful lot of money. Harmeon had to come up with a story that made this plan look bad.

His story had been simply this: "Vote against this and we will give you a lot of money." He and his associates had also told the senators they lobbied that the system of bacta distribution had been in place for many years and disrupting the system could lead to disaster. This story wasn't too well received because Snotzenexer had been as busy as possible changing all of the other long held traditions and had been vastly improving everyone's way of life because of it.

Harmeon and friends had been able to convince about seven percent of the senators to side with them. This percentage wasn't even worth mentioning and the final vote would probably be reported as having been unanimous. This meant that Harmeon couldn't let the issue come to a vote. With a few senators under his control, the bacta bigwig tried to filibuster.

The first senator given the right to speak began by saying that before voting to accept a new organization for the distribution of medicine, the senate should be informed about the history of galactic medicine. Snotzenexer was prepared for this and knew that this man would not be able to read the history of galactic medicine in less than a week of senate sessions. Snotzenexer did not plan to wait that long. He also knew that the best place, and the most likely place, for this senator to obtain this history was from the Republic library here on Coruscant.

Before the man began, Snotzenexer had asked him if he had already read and understood everything he was about to recite to the senate. The man said he had. Snotzenexer asked him what the report said about veltanium. The man said he couldn't exactly recall. Snotzenexer informed him that the report went on about veltanium for about 10,000 words and said that it was the first medicine found on the planet of Grebic, a planet this senator happened to be from, and was used to cure a disease that this senator's son had had twelve years ago.

Snotzenexer then said that the senator should probably research his information a little better before claiming that it was important for the entire assembly to hear. He also said that he should probably not lie under oath again.

Harmeon had seven other senators ready to filibuster, but only one of them was brave enough to attempt it. This senator, an alien with a very slow speech impediment, said that he wished to describe how bacta effected the economic stability of the planets where Xucphra and Zaltin were based.

Snotzenexer imagined that this senator had the income statement of every employee of the two companies and how the companies' money was spent over the years to improve the lives of the population of these planets. Snotzenexer asked the senator how he expected the proposed health and drug organization would affect the bacta companies.

The alien senator didn't see the trap yet. He responded by saying that it would put the companies out of business and could he please continue with his statements. The senator really didn't want to get in a war of words with the president. A war he knew he wouldn't be able to win.

Snotzenexer apologized for the interruption, but asked that before he begin with how the collapse of these companies would hurt their home worlds, he should probably explain how the increased demand for bacta would collapse the companies. The senator explained that there is no way the companies could meet the demands for bacta that the new administration would require and could he please continue now.

Snotzenexer begged a thousand apologies as he easily interrupted the slow speaking senator again. He asked that since the demand would be high and supply would be low, wouldn't that drive prices up and make the bacta business a ton of money. The senator hesitated, making the pause in between words even greater than normal. He now saw the trap but was helpless to avoid it. Snotzenexer continued in his pause by saying that if he could explain how the companies will collapse then the effect on the planets was something the senate definitely needed to hear, but if the companies would prosper beyond belief then what the senator had to say would probably just be a waste of time.

The alien wished Harmeon was standing next to him to tell him if he should continue. He didn't really have a choice. He slowly explained that with a shortage of bacta, the general public would step up to meet the demand. Snotzenexer didn't even bother asking the next question knowing that it was so obvious that he would only be blatantly insulting the senator. The senator explained that a new type of artificial environment dome that allowed for the growth and production of alazhi in any environment, the main ingredient in bacta, had been developed.

Snotzenexer assured the senator that the two companies would easily be able to outbid a few ambitious farmers and there was nothing to worry about. The alien sighed at having to continue this game, even though the winner had already been decided. He informed Snotzenexer (as if he didn't know) that it wouldn't be just a few ambitious farmers but millions of farmers would be involved. Snotzenexer actually thought that it would be more like "billions of farmers," but he didn't say so. Instead he said that he didn't think this had anything to do with the proposed health and drug organization. The demand for bacta was there whether the organization to distribute it was created or not. Snotzenexer finished by saying that he thought that maybe the bacta companies should make a move against this artificial environment producer instead.

No more filibusters were attempted and the other senators that had orders from Harmeon to work their magic and stop the proceedings decided that they would just sit by and watch, not wishing to be made out as fools. It was likely that both of the senators that failed would be recalled by their home worlds and replaced within two days, a fate no one else wanted.

All of the senators recognized the two sides of this debate now and they had all made up their minds which side should win. The companies in question had a monopoly on a product that no longer should be monopolized. They also realized that although the companies would die out, very few lives would be ruined. The worlds currently producing bacta would still do so, only they would run themselves privately. If anything, this would improve the lives of those involved with the bacta.

No one else spoke up to add to the debate before the vote. Everyone seemed very happy with the way their new president had handled the opposition, and everyone agreed with what he said that this new organization would be a good thing. The vote was unanimous, as expected. The senators who had been paid to vote against it simply abstained, hoping to save face.

Harmeon watched the proceedings with disgust. He couldn't claim that he would have been able to do any better against the president, but then he wasn't a senator and it wasn't his job to win debates. It was his job to maintain his monopoly, and he had done a stangin' good job of it until now.

He had heard Snotzenexer's words when he said that the companies should focus their attention on the producer of the artificial environments. He kind of wished he hadn't said that because now when he made his move against the small shield generator producer, Custom Shields Galactica, on the small, unheard of planet of Rembon, it might look a little suspicious. Harmeon didn't have the skill, resources, or intellect of Snotzenexer enabling the former Imperial admiral to simulate natural disasters any time he wanted to destroy something. If he had, Harmeon might have been able to pull off his little endeavor without calling any attention to himself.

As it was, Harmeon was glad that although this new president seemed to be able to handle any financial, legislative, or administrative problem that came his way, he didn't have the same connection with the military that Organa-Solo had. Harmeon didn't know for sure, but there was no reported friendship between Snotzenexer and the head of the Republic navy, Admiral Antilles. Little did Harmeon know that Wedge was no longer part of the navy, nor was his second in command, Perry Tremon. This placed little known and recent Imperial defector, Admiral Sanson as the next in command of the Republic Navy. Also unknown to Harmeon and almost everyone else, Snotzenexer had a much stronger tie to Sanson than Leia had had with Wedge.

Harmeon knew that if Leia were still in power, she would probably quite illegally station an armada around the planet of Rembon. Snotzenexer seemed to be one who followed rules and regulations much more closely. By the time he got the senate to approve deployment to the small planet, Custom Shields Galactica would be a cold pile of rubble.

***

Sandie Hollins reclined in her chair, flipped off the holo-vid, and looked out of her office window at the Iom skyline. She liked this new job a lot. A month ago she had been the secretary for Dran Overn, President of the Galactic Bank in the Detsgor system, GBD. Everyone who knew how that bank ran also knew that she had just as much to do with the inner workings of the bank as President Overn did.

Miss Hollins was in her late thirties, blonde hair (colored to stay that way), and a short but lithe frame. From outward appearances, she looked maybe in her late twenties, with aura of ditziness about her. If anything, she only used that assumed incompetence to her advantage, making deals with misinformed men and robbing them blind. She was the kind of woman that after a two hour meeting with her, you walked away shaking your head and jangling your nearly empty credit pouch saying, "Boy, I sure misjudged her."

Sandie had been perfectly happy working for President Overn. She had held the title of secretary, but had the salary of a part owner. Her life had been simple. The Detsgor system was very quiet and unexciting. Real estate prices were easy to predict, inflation rates were modest, and business was good. Then there was the accident on Xentin, destroying the Mining Corporation of Xentin, MCX.

MCX had borrowed money from GBD. The Galactic Bank in Detsgor was used to writing off this kind of a loss. It wasn't a very big loan, and they had a lot of it paid off already. If Sandie's memory was correct (it usually was) they had owed two hundred forty million on a four hundred million loan at four percent yearly over ten years. The difference in this case was that Snotzenexer had taken the time to personally tell President Overn that he expected positive profits during the quarter.

After that, events moved at such a rapid pace that Sandie's head was still spinning. Sandie had called the Republic to pay the loan; the entire Republic went bankrupt; Snotzenexer swept in to save it with the financial backing of the Varion Imperial Bank; Snotzenexer then withdrew his support from the Galactic Bank in Detsgor as well as others who tried to make a run on the Republic; all the above mentioned banks crashed instantly; Overn committed suicide; Snotzenexer swept up these banks in his enormous financial arms; and Sandie found herself in the employ of the greatest financial wizard ever, not to mention her personal idol.

When Snotzenexer began looking for a candidate to sit in the Varion Imperial Bank's presidential office, he began combing the personnel from his recently acquired banks. Most of the presidents had been removed from the banks when they had crashed and Snotzenexer found that he only had a bunch of aids and board members to choose from. When he saw that a bank secretary had applied for the position, it drew his attention. Either the woman was very naive, or, and more likely, she was very over qualified for her secretarial position and wanted to move up.

It had been an easy choice for Snotzenexer, and he had told Sandie why. The President of the Republic wanted to still have a major hand in the workings of the bank on Iom, and therefore was looking for someone who knew how a bank should be run, yet at the same time was willing to take a backseat in the more important matters. Sandie Hollins would have it no other way. She very much wanted to have the ability make important decisions, but she couldn't think of a better learning experience than operating under Snotzenexer.

Sandie had just finished watching the senate proceedings and the passage of Snotzenexer's proposed health and drug organization. She had been told about Custom Shields Galactica and about their new invention. She had also been told that Snotzenexer wished to invest heavily in the small company. It was not nearly big enough to be traded on the galactic stock market, but Snotzenexer had plans to change that.

Sandie and Snotzenexer both had contacted the owner of the business, a very bright young man, and had told him what they proposed. Sandie had talked to him about purchasing and then expanding the business to accommodate the growth in sales everyone expected. Sandie would make the company tradable on the stock market and wanted to create a construction facility locally in the Varion system as a branch of the Varion Construction Yards, a large ship building company that Snotzenexer had acquired part ownership in.

The owner of the company had agreed easily after Sandie explained how she planned to leave him in charge of the operations and that his personal income should octuple in the first year.

Right now Sandie was waiting for a call from Snotzenexer. He had told her that he would call to give final instructions as to the particulars of the deal with Custom Shields Galactica. She knew it would take a while for the Republic president to get back to his office. Her screen beeped, informing her that she had an incoming call. Sandie activated her holo-com and saw the face of her boss.

"It looked like it went well," she informed him needlessly.

"Better than I had expected," Snotzenexer said back. "Do you have everything set up with the CSG?"

Sandie nodded. "I assume that you want to wait until a moment before the market closes."

Snotzenexer tried to hide his broad grin. This woman was smarter than almost all of his military officers put together. "That's right. Trading will of course be closed this weekend, and I want everyone to get a good look at what we've done before they react. We also need to be prepared to receive the influx that will probably occur." These weren't the only reasons, but the others were military and Sandie wasn't aware of Snotzenexer's many other agendas. Snotzenexer had hesitated in giving her so much authority without her knowing everything, but the benefits out-weighed the problems.

"I'll handle everything on this side, sir." Sandie paused for a moment, waiting to report a little piece of news. "I made an announcement this morning that might have a major impact on what you're doing."

"Really," Snotzenexer was intrigued.

"I put out a notice in our stockholders bulletin that anything involved with Xuchpra or Zaltin should be avoided as an investment."

Snotzenexer was momentarily worried. "You didn't use my name, did you?" It was important that Snotzenexer didn't make any personal moves against the bacta companies.

"No, I signed off on the report. The two companies themselves aren't tradable, but their shipping company is, as well as some of their tank production facilities."

Snotzenexer nodded, thoughtfully. He hadn't thought about attacking the companies this way basically because he didn't want to be seen as an enemy to the two companies but as a victim. Sandie, on the other hand, could make the move, and people would still listen just because she was the visible head of the largest bank in the galaxy.

Snotzenexer smiled as he closed the connection. His bank was in good hands.

***

Vince, Jon, and Bep found themselves back in very familiar seats as they piloted their three fighters out of the Super Star Destroyer's hangar and into the arena. Sanson wasn't taking any chances with these three fighters. The arena was made up of seven ships: her SSD and six interdiction cruisers. Each of the cruisers was equipped with several tractor beams all positioned to keep the fighters from flying outside of the arena. Of course the biggest deterrent keeping the fighters from leaving the arena was the three fighters waiting for the 185th.

Sanson had found out something that Thrawn had discovered years ago. Because of the Force, it was not possible to clone too many of the same person at once. The multiple Force echoes of the same mind in a close proximity led to, at best, inconsistency in the clones actions and at worst insanity or death. The female admiral had been able to clone Victor twice. For some semblance of clarity, she called the two clones Victer and Victir.

Sanson had found that while the two clones were mentally stable, they were not quite as good as the original. They were still far better than any other pilots the underground Empire had, but she didn't think the clones would be able to beat the 185th's best in a simulator like their original had. The question was: could the three of them together beat the three members of the 185th?

Victer and Victir weren't as good as Jon, but Sanson bet they could hold their own against Vince and Bep. The problem had always been that while no single 185th pilot could take on five fighters by himself, the three of them together could often take on more than fifteen. They just worked very well as a team. Since Victor, Victir, and Victer all had the exact same mind set and thought process, Sanson wondered if they would also work much better as a team than they did apart.

Sanson also wanted to see if the 185th had anything up their sleeve. She had remembered how the three fighters had foiled her and Commander Qwi'tek's attack on the tropic planet of Gensiffery almost single handedly. That attack had been Sanson's first unsimulated battle and she was sorely disappointed with the results. It had happened in the weeks leading up to the clash at the Dark Ring, another defeat at the hands of the 185th. She remembered looking at the sensor readings with Snotzenexer, trying to figure out what the three fighters and the Corellian freighter were trying to accomplish as they fired the super nova weapon into Danzig 359.

The most recent wounds the 185th had given to the Empire had happened a few weeks ago as eleven of Ward Leonce's clones, the best pilot the Empire had, had been unable to take out one of the three W-wings, while the 185th and Skywalker had managed to destroy three of the TIE's.

Sanson knew that these three young men were not used to defeat. They weren't only not used to it, but had never in fact faced it. The admiral had just gone over the modified TIE fighters with a fine-tooth comb, trying to find out what, if anything, Bep and Vince had done to sabotage the ships. She had given them the assignment of modifying the fighters so they performed better, and it appeared on the surface that they had done just that.

Sanson was not a gullible fool and knew, even though she had not found anything, that there was something shady about the three pilots so willingly helping their enemy. The admiral had of course threatened them with death and promised them their freedom, neither of which she had any intention of allowing, to get their compliance. Even the most recent change to the TIE, removing the hyperspace safeties, seemed innocent enough and had good reasoning behind it, but Sanson felt that something had to be wrong.

Bep and Vince had explained to the admiral when she had questioned the change that it would be impossible for the nav-computer to allow the ship to jump to hyperspace in-system unless the safeties were removed. Sanson had then pointed out that the safeties weren't removed on the W-wings. Bep had smiled when she had said this. He had said that was because he had programmed the navcoms on the three ships himself with the help of the Republic's flight computers, and if the admiral would just allow him access to the Dark Fist's computers, he would be able to write the navcoms for the TIE's.

Sanson had only laughed when Bep had suggested this. Not only was she not going to ever let him have access to her ship's computers, but also just the idea of him programming the TIE's navcoms was out of the question. Sanson was informed enough to know that when original programming code was written and not formally documented, often even the programmer who had written it wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of it after he was done. Bep would be able to fill the navcom with hundreds of bugs that would undoubtedly make their appearances at the worst possible time for the Empire and the best time for the three fighters.

Sanson had finally decided that there was nothing she could do about the situation but wait and see what happened. Yes, the 185th had to have put some kind of bug in the modified TIE's, but no, it could not possibly be a major malfunction or she or her techs would have found it. It was probably something that could only be taken advantage of by a very skilled pilot who knew of the bug.

This little skirmish should bring out that flaw, and one way or another, it would be taken care of. If the 185th won this battle, it simply meant that they were still better than her clones and Sanson would have to learn to accept that she probably wouldn't be able to find a better trio. If the Republic pilots had to use the bug to beat Victor and company, then the bug would not only be revealed, but the 185th would have admitted that without the bug, they wouldn't have been able to survive. The third possibility was that the three W-wings could loose and the knowledge of any bug and how to abuse it would die with them.

Out in the arena, Vince was tinkering with his sensors. He had been able to rig up an attachment that could interpret spacial compressions as interdiction fields, but there were so many natural gravity wells in the system, that he was having a hard time calibrating the setup.

"So, what's out there?" Jon asked, looking at the sphere of ships surrounding them.

"It looks like the interdiction cruisers are only creating a ring around us, giving us fluid space in the middle."

"Of course," Bep put in. "The TIE's wouldn't be able to do any of their fancy hyperspace maneuvering if the fighting area was interdicted."

"It looks like each ship is putting out its own shield and they meshing together to eliminate any gaps," Vince explained, finally working out the proper frequency settings for his modified sensors.

"No time to talk about it now fellas," Jon piped up. "Enemies, dead ahead."

The three TIE's all came screaming at the three immobile ships, breaking up the conversation and sending each of the W-wings off on a random vector. The three Republic pilots had talked about this scenario, having suspected what Sanson would plan next to test her new pilot. They knew how well they fought together and figured that Victor and his clones would do equally as well.

To combat this problem, they had decided to try and fight alone as much as possible, turning a three-on-three match into three head-to-head battles. Although this technique eliminated the advantage that the clones had, being of the same mind, it also forced the 185th to fight differently than normal.

The match-ups were exactly as expected. Victor hooked up with Jon, while Victer and Victir took Bep and Vince respectively. The ships didn't have nametags on them and identification through a cockpit while a pilot was wearing a helmet was impossible. Still, the pilots could tell just by the way they flew their ships, who was who. For example, when the W-wings scrambled, Vince broke away first, being the group leader. He and Bep usually fought together, and Bep followed the move before veering off on his own vector. Jon, the spontaneous fighter, did a quick barrel roll into the on-coming fire before turning off at an angle completely different from his two partners.

With the 185th members determined to make this a one-on-one battle, the outcome seemed inevitable. As with the initial moments of Jon and Victor's last simulated battle together, the two ships simply did not fight each other well. The TIE's were too fast and too well piloted to absorb enough fire from the W-wings while the Imperial ships simply didn't have enough fire power to make a mark on the Republic's best.

If the ships had been fighting group against group, traps could be set, double teams could be initiated, and diversions could be executed. As it was, it was going to take another unique maneuver like Victor had pulled against Jon to win this battle. Jon had been in this situation before, and as he easily avoided his trail, he looked out at his other two friends to see how they were doing.

Bep was trying admirably to hit his elusive opponent, but not succeeding. Vince, on the other hand, had brought his opponent far to the edge of the fighting arena and appeared to be pulling a daring "Scoundrel's Cross." The move involved successive turns and rolls, crossing paths with your opponent and coming terribly close to a collision. The move was designed to send both crafts scrambling, eliminating any chase that might have been engaged. The daring part of it was that if the trail identified the move early enough, they could slow themselves, avoid any possible collision, and resume the chase with a potential missile lock.

Jon immediately noticed that Victir, Vince's partner in this deadly dance, had indeed recognized the maneuver and was adjusting his speed accordingly. "Hey, Vince," Jon spoke into the com, "what in the galaxy are you doing? Since when did you start reading a text book on maneuvers?"

"Don't worry, buddy," Vince replied. "I know what I'm doing."

"So does your trail," Bep pointed out, giving up his chase long enough to look at what Jon was talking about.

Sure enough, Vince doubled back across his previous path and flew right in front of the waiting TIE. Instead of trying for a missile lock or falling in behind the W-wing, Victir acquired a tractor lock and pulled up along side his enemy. "Be careful, Vince," Jon said, recognizing the move as the one that had taken him down.

"Calm down, bud, don't you think I watched your loosing effort yesterday," Vince replied, referring to having watched Jon's defeat in the simulator. Then, despite Vince's professing knowledge of his situation, he pivoted around to face his opponent.

Jon and Bep were in shock at their friend's apparently stupid move. Neither of their W-wings was equipped with Vince's new sensor modification, or they would have understood immediately. Instead it took a fraction of a second while Victir activated his hyperdrive maneuver and was yanked out of it half-way through by an interdictor field for Vince's two friends to restore their trust in their group leader. Victir's TIE was disorientated for a brief moment and Vince was able to loop up and around and get two solid hits on the ship before it was able to limp away.

Sanson saw immediately what was happening, and became extremely concerned that she had made a grave mistake. Before the admiral could get in touch with her communication officer and identify which ship was producing the interdiction field that had hindered the TIE, the commander of the ship in question had made his own interpretation of the incident. It was the wrong interpretation

"Pull back," Commander Polgan ordered his navigation officer. "We need to give them more room. The admiral said that the ships needed to fight in un-interdicted space." The navigation officer was a well trained Imperial officer and didn't question the orders even though he knew that they would result in breaking one of Sanson's other strict commands.

Vince saw the opening in the interdiction field as soon as the moving ship created it. "Guys, there's a crack in the shield. I'm sending the vector information now."

Sanson was furious. She had finally gotten a hold of Commander Polgan and began screaming at once. "What are you doing, you stupid swine?"

"But Admiral, we were impinging on the battle. You said we were to let them fight unhindered."

"You've probably opened a crack in the shield. Hadn't it dawned on you that they wanted you to move? Move the ship back at once."

"Admiral," the commander replied, his tone voice reeking of insubordinace, "surely you don't believe that those ships could pick out that small of a crack in the shield while dog-fighting. Even if they could, no navcom in the world could do the calculation in less than an hour."

Sanson said nothing, but just stared at her communications screen on the bridge. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her face as placid as she could make it. She didn't have to wait long. Two seconds later all three W-wing's broke off their engagements and vaulted into hyperspace, easily squeezing through the fifty meter gap in the shield.

Commander Polgan's face was stricken in horror. "Lieutenant Commander Hagin," Sanson called into the communicator. The second in command on board the interdictor cruiser stepped into the com camera's view. "Would you please kill Commander Polgan and take his place. Sanson out."

The admiral didn't bother to watch, confident that discipline was being carried out. She hadn't ordered anyone executed in a long time, and it felt good.

Chapter 15 "Strength in Numbers"

Leia opened her eyes slowly, not wanting to shock her senses by yanking herself back into reality too suddenly. Streen was sitting across from her waiting patiently. The former head of state had been in a trance for over two hours and the Jedi Master had waited right next to her the whole time. He had not helped or pried into her thoughts as he had before, but merely observed.

Leia had not merely been performing a calming meditation, but was trying something that Streen had recently taught her. Streen called it an awareness trance, and Leia now knew why. The idea was to spread your mental presence out around you slowly, the sphere of your awareness growing to astronomical proportions. The trance was similar to what a Jedi should always posses with him, but on a much grander scale.

Being aware of one's surroundings was very important, and a Jedi always seemed to be able to sense when danger or trouble was near. A "disturbance" in the Force is always very obvious to a Jedi who is aware of their surroundings. The trance Streen had shown Leia expanded on this idea immensely. It allowed a Jedi to not only be aware of what was going to happen in a few moments, but to also have some knowledge of what was to come in hours or even days.

Leia had spread her presence out slowly, as Streen had instructed, taking notice of the life around her. She did not care much about the jungle moon, or anyone on it, but Streen had told her that if she concentrated on the life here, at a close proximity, it would be much easier to make contact with those much further away.

Leia took notice of the moon, teaming with life. She could feel the many animals of the jungle as they went through their daily routines. The non-sentient beings produced little feeling or emotion, but their life gave Leia a certain sense of strength and she pushed her presence past the atmosphere.

She paused momentarily as she felt the swirling gravity wells of the gas giant around which this moon rotated. Yavin was a huge, super compressed ball of gas that was overflowing with raw power. This planet that she had seen on the horizon numerous times but had never really analyzed momentarily humbled Leia. Sentient life in the universe marveled at its ability to build bigger and more destructive weapons than the previous generation. Every Death Star had to spawn a second. For every ship, their had to be a bigger and more destructive one. Even with all the time and technology to achieve power and strength, here sat a ball of gas that was capable of ripping to shreds anything that ventured too close. Yavin wasn't even close to the size of a normal star, yet it was capable of sucking in whole fleets of the strongest ships known.

Leia moved passed the planet and continued her expansion much quicker now, feeding off of the power she felt around her. She felt other life forms, none of them familiar to her. She was suddenly assailed with an overwhelming sense of life and prosperity and realized she must have stumbled across another planet. She spent a brief time soaking in this new experience before moving along.

She felt others, in space - ships no doubt - roaming around in the void between worlds. Then she felt what she was looking for. She sensed Han. At first he was simply another life force, like the others she had skipped over, but there had been something familiar about this presence that had caused her to analyze it more carefully. There was no mistake that it was Han. Leia narrowed her focus on her husband and anyone else that might be in the area. She felt a very faint presence that she wanted to believe was Jaina but could not be sure.

Now that Leia knew she was capable of identifying individuals, she broadened her scope again and continued her expansion. She sensed Lando, Mara, Anakin, and their companions with whom she was less familiar. Leia also sensed three others coming toward Yavin whom she could not name, but definitely felt familiar. Leia now exploded her search, gaining much confidence from her recent discoveries. She found Luke.

She had spoken to Luke before, using a much narrower searching technique, but this contact was different. Before it had been like talking on the holo-com with out a picture. They had talked to each other in their minds, knowing only what the other was thinking. Now she felt his life force. He was calm and comfortable. She thought he might be conversing with another, but she could not be sure. Luke had told her that he was not alone and had found a friend. Leia examined him momentarily and found that he produced just as strong a life force projection as either Luke or Han had.

Now that Leia was finished and slowly coming out of her trance, Streen could see a definite change coming over her. Two weeks ago she had been very mournful and dejected. Even a week ago after Mara had spoken with her and gotten her to start living again, Leia had only been moving though the paces. Now that she knew her husband and brother were safe, that two of her children were returning, and many of her old friends with them, there came alive the old spark that had allowed this woman, at a very young age, to help administer the defeat of the Empire.

"We are going to have company soon," Leia said as she emerged fully.

Streen nodded in agreement. He knew that everyone was coming. He had sensed them a few hours ago. It had been this knowledge that had prompted him to have Leia perform the meditation. Since he knew that there was someone for Leia to find, he knew that the meditation would helpful.

Leia stood from her sitting position in her chair. "We are going to have company soon," she said again, her eyes in a far off place as if she was trying to remember something. She suddenly looked down at her self. Leia had not showered as regularly as she should have and hair care had been a thing of the past. "We are going to have company soon," she said for the third time, "and I look like a wreck." Leia raced from her room to the nearest refresher. Streen simply smiled as she left, feeling satisfied that Leia would make a full recovery.

***

The Jade's Fire was the first to arrive at the Academy. She, Ra'tok, and Anakin (and especially Anakin) were greeted warmly by Leia. Chewie, Threepio, and Artoo were there also, and while the Wookiee greeted the new arrivals with a hug, Threepio resigned himself to handshakes and Artoo to beeps.

Though Leia was happy to see her son and Mara and her new copilot, she was disappointed that Han had not already arrived. She had felt his presence first during her meditation and had thought him to be closer. In reality, Han was closer, but had to drop out of hyperspace early as the gas giant of Yavin was blocking his path.

Han was in a hurry to see his wife and maybe his son, but was cautious not to curse this delay. When approaching the Academy from Coruscant, there was a fifty-fifty chance that you would have to go through this delay and circle the huge planet in normal space. Han didn't want to become annoyed with the delay because he remembered quite vividly that thirty years earlier, when the Rebellion faced off against the original Death Star, this delay had bought Luke and him just enough time to blow the thing to bits.

The Scavenger was always a sore sight, but to Leia, it was a beautiful thing as it floated down to a landing pad. Han came out of the ship alone, slowly at first, the door just opening, but ran the last few steps to his waiting wife. They embraced for a long while, not saying anything and realizing that stories could come later.

"Jaina is in the ship," Han said finally, breaking off the embrace. Han looked around, realizing that someone was missing from this reunion. "I was hoping that Luke could look at her."

Leia shook her head. "Don't you know? Luke is on Hoth. He has been exiled."

Han shook his head, near total shock. The he remembered that he also had catastrophic information concerning their family. Before Han could tell Leia about Jacen, Leia put a finger to her husband's lips. "I know," she said quietly. "What about Jaina?"

Han looked toward his youngest son, who was trying not to pry into his parents' reunion. "Anakin," he called, though he had a pretty good idea that his son already knew what he wanted, "could you take a look at your sister tell us what you think."

The three family members went inside the ship, the rest of the group stayed respectfully outside. Anakin led the way through his siblings' ship, finding Jaina right were Eran had secured her. He knelt down next to her and placed his hand on her forehead. He was surprised momentarily by the heat he felt there, but passed that discovery by and tried to analyze her condition.

"She's empty," he said after only a few short minutes. "She is missing some vital part of her existence and it has left a huge empty void where her essence once was. Her body is alive, but her soul is absent. The Force has filled the void and is keeping her body for when her soul returns."

"You said she is missing something," Han pointed out. "What?"

"Jacen," Leia and her son said together. "Jacen was ripped away from her violently," Anakin continued, "and in her shock of disbelief, her soul went with him, not wanting to try existence without him. It was a spontaneous decision on her part, and obviously not one that she should have made. I don't think I can bring her back without communion with her soul, and it is too far distant to locate."

"Will she stay like this forever?" Han asked, dreading any answer Anakin might give.

"I can not answer that."

"I might be able to," Leia spoke up. "I was in a similar state as Jaina when the wave of Jacen's absence hit me on Coruscant. I removed myself from my body, no longer caring what happened to me or what I looked like. My body kept living and my mind was functioning to some extent, but my heart and soul was not in it. Finally Mara and Master Streen convinced me that I needed to continue and I was able to reattain my focus. Jaina will need to make that decision for herself as well."

Silence existed for a while as what Leia said sunk in. Anakin broke the silence as he looked up at the ceiling of the Scavenger. "Someone else is coming," he said.

Han could see that his son was looking past the hull of the freighter and trying to sort something out in his mind. "Lando was right behind me."

Anakin nodded, having already figured out who one of the newcomers were, but his face was screwed up in concentration. "He's not alone."

Han remembered about Trince. Surely his hateful aura was what puzzled Anakin. "Trince is with him," Han said, knowing that the Jedi and his son had been at the Academy at the same time and probably knew each other.

"That's not Trince," Anakin said slowly and carefully.

Han knew what he meant. "It is," Han insisted, "or at least it was. He, Lando, and I went through a very trying ordeal in the bottom levels of Coruscant." Leia looked suddenly concerned, but Han gave her a reassuring look that he'd tell her about it later. "We were captured and they left Trince for dead. I honestly thought that he was dead, but then he came to our rescue about a week later. He is very full of rage and hate at no one in particular."

"He is filled with rage," Anakin agreed, resigned to accept that the approaching presence was in fact the levelheaded lightsaber expert that he had known back in the Academy.

"Is he Dark?" Leia asked, suddenly concerned.

"I'm not sure," Anakin replied briefly. "He doesn't have any evil intentions about him that I can discern, but his vision is definitely clouded." Anakin paused in thought. "They are just about to land. Let's go meet them."

The family trio decided to leave Jaina where she was, not seeing any advantage in moving her right now. Leia thought that later she would bring her daughter into the quarters here at the Academy. Streen could look at her, and while his powers were far less than Anakin's, his knowledge was far greater. Maybe if Mara's secret plan to rescue Luke worked, he could have a look at her. Leia shuddered at the thought that her daughter might be in this comatose state for the rest of her life.

The Lady Luck was just settling down as the threesome left the Scavenger. The limited ship space at the Academy was being used up quickly with still more traffic expected. Lando and Trince emerged together; the Jedi seemed a bit subdued. He seemed almost sheepish as he looked about the gathering so far. Lando was quickly introduced to Ra'tok, and Han realized that he had not yet been introduced to the unique alien either.

Trince hung back, staying close to the Lady Luck and pretending to check on some of the landing equipment. Anakin didn't let the disturbed Jedi off that easily. "Welcome back Trince," Anakin said as he approached the former student.

"Hardly time for friendly greetings," Trince said, as he quite trying to pretend to play with the ship and turned to talk to Anakin. "Surely you of all people can feel it."

Trince was talking in a hushed whisper and looking around as if he was scared that someone might be listening. Anakin was looking around also and simply saw that Chewie, Ra'tok, Lando, and his father were trading stories, getting to know each other. "Feel what?" Anakin asked back, feeling compelled to respond in a similar whisper.

"Why the discord in the universe," Trince replied, feeling disappointed that Anakin had not known immediately what he was talking about. He continued talking as if he was sharing information that was not popular with the majority, sort of like he was trying to speak out against some deeply held belief and was concerned what might happen to him if someone over heard him. "There is something very wrong in the galaxy. Some evil just sitting on the edge of the horizon just waiting to dive down on all life. It is weighing down on me like a heavy blanket. Please don't tell me that you can't feel anything."

Anakin paused before answering, truly trying to feel something of what the fellow Jedi was talking about. "My brother is dead, my sister in a coma, and my uncle is marooned on an ice ball, but beyond that, I can feel no sense of dread or concern. I'm sorry, but I'll meditate on it."

"Meditate on it," Trince bit back, making a repulsive sound. "You are no different than the others. This is not the time for complacency or ambiguity. This is the time for action."

"We'll see," Anakin replied. He lingered a while longer, wondering if Trince would say more, but left when it was apparent he wouldn't.

Wedge was the next one to arrive a few hours later. With him were Perry Tremon and a very detailed mineral analysis of a few asteroid fragments. Mara noticed that even as skilled as Wedge was, he still had a little trouble landing the crippled Skipray Blastboat. The ship took up two landing pads, and the Academy's ability to handle incoming traffic had officially been reached. With the Falcon, the Jade's Fire, the Lady Luck, the Scavenger, the few private crafts belonging to the students still at the Academy, and now Wedge's stolen transport, the normally private moon was overflowing with ships.

After the greetings and introductions appeared to be over, Mara tried to get the attention of the group. "Is this everyone?"

Leia shook her head slowly. "I don't think so."

The group was standing outside under the fast setting sun, and Mara looked around at everyone. Her mental checklist was complete and with Trince, Perry, and Lando in attendance, she saw that she would have to make her list a bit longer. "Who-"

Mara started, but was cut off as Anakin pointed into the sky. "Them," the Jedi said plainly. Three lights could be easily seen in the dusk descending toward the group.

"You don't think," Wedge started.

"The 185th," Perry agreed. "I was wondering where those guys were. It's been far too long since their scheduled leave."

Mara had no idea who they were talking about, but Wedge, Perry, Han, Lando, Chewie, and Anakin all had some experience with the three exceptional pilots and were glad to see they were part of the group. After the W-wings invented a landing spot in a small clearing next to the constructed pads and the group exchanged their greetings and introductions, Mara ushered everyone inside.

Ten minutes later the group of thirteen people and two droids found themselves in one of the lecture rooms in the Academy. Mara stood at the head of the classroom. She had assumed command of the motley crew and no one seemed to object.

"All of us are here for different reasons, I'm sure," she started, "but I assume that we all have a common concern: Snotzenexer. I know that some of you might know more about what has happened than I do, but I want to assure all of you who don't that the current president of the Republic has a secret, pro-Imperial agenda."

"There is no more Empire for one to be in favor of, though," Lando said.

"It might not look that way," Vince responded, "but believe me, they are simply hiding under the ruse of being part of the Republic."

"I believe Snotzenexer is trying to slowly weed out all of the remnants of the old Republic," Mara regained the floor, "and replacing them with his own substitutes." She motioned to Wedge and Perry. "He already managed to get rid of two of the highest ranking members of the military, and I believe he has closer than normal relationship with Admiral Sanson."

The three members of the 185th rolled their eyes, having long ago realized that Sanson would not have been able to do what she had been without help from the president. "He managed to get rid of me quite easily," Leia piped in, "and he managed to remove Luke from the scene along with any sympathy we might have been able to generate amongst the Republic loyals."

"I agree Snotzenexer is doing all these things," Han spoke up, "but how do we know for certain he is pro-Imperial? What if he was just a bank president who was tired of the current leadership in the galaxy and thought he could do better? He removed the old government and replaced it with one that, as far as I can tell, operates far more smoothly than anything thing we had ever been able to put together."

Before Vince could explain what he and his partners had been through, Wedge spoke up. "Snotzenexer was involved with the happenings in the Denorid system."

"We read about that," Lando put in, "but he is hardly acting like an Imperial. He is sending more relief aid every week and has probably saved millions of lives by the action he has convinced the senate to take regarding the situation."

"We aren't talking about the relief effort," Tremon explained. "We are talking about the actual disaster. We have reason to believe the asteroids were placed on a collision course with the Denorid system."

"You'd have to have a pretty big ship to accomplish that," Lando pointed out.

"Sanson has a Super Star Destroyer at her disposal," Vince informed the group.

"This is all circumstantial," Han said. "I don't mean to be a sore, but I don't want to accuse the head of the Republic with mass murder without proof. Do you have any solid proof?"

Mara looked at Wedge, but the former admiral shook his head. He needed to check what they had found against the asteroids in the Varion system. Even that would only prove that the asteroids had come from the Varion system and not that they were put there by Snotzenexer or Sanson. Mara looked back at Han. "We don't have any solid proof, only a valid suspicion. Call it a Jedi hunch. There are a lot of things about Snotzenexer's past, his rise to power, and his possible agenda, that seem too coincidental."

Something about what Mara had said seemed to stir some forgotten item in Han's brain. He had heard the words "Snotzenexer's past, his rise to power, and his possible agenda" just recently, but they had come from someone else. The man in the hotel room. The man who Trince had thrown off the building. He had said he had information about Snotzenexer.

Everything began to make sense to Han now. The twins had gone after someone who had supposedly stolen the Republic's financial records. Then the Republic had gone into financial ruin, only to be saved by Snotzenexer. Now someone comes to Han after everything is resolved, having had a clash with his kids and claiming to have information on how Snotzenexer gained his power.

If this unknown agent had stolen the records and then sold them to Snotzenexer, or if Snotzenexer had hired this person in the first place, then the sudden crash of the Republic so soon after these events could not possibly be coincidental. The crash had been the result of a disaster at a mining corporation that had killed hundreds of people. If Snotzenexer had arranged that, he could have also arranged the Denorid massacre.

"What are we going to do about it?" Han asked, agreeing with Mara that the new president was not on the level.

"Right now," Mara replied, "nothing." From behind him, Han could here Trince sigh loudly. "There is really nothing we can do. I understand that Wedge and Perry here are planning on going to the Varion system to check on the asteroids. Anakin and I are going to make a trip to Hoth to see if we can get Luke and his new friend back among us." Mara had talked with Leia and knew that Luke had met someone on Hoth and if she was going to plan a rescue, she should include him in her plans. "Which reminds me - Lando, do you remember how you installed the stolen cloaking device on the Falcon?"

"Yeah, I think so," the gambler responded.

"I might need your help then. Beyond that, you and Han should probably try to dig up as much dirt as you can on our new president to see if he does have a week spot. If you talk to Tionne I think she can show you how to access just about any galactic library or news source you want."

"I think it would be best if the 185th came with us," Wedge added. "I'm pretty sure Snotzenexer knows about our interest in the asteroids and he would expect us to go to the Varion system. If we had a little extra fire power, it would prove useful."

"The Academy has an old Carrier you can use," Anakin informed the former admiral. "We use it when we want to train students to use the Force when piloting. It might have a few A-wings in it, but you can remove them if you like."

That left Ra'tok, Chewie, Trince, and Leia without work. Mara was pretty sure Ra'tok would insist on coming along to Hoth and Leia would want to stay at the Academy. With Leia went Chewie, so that left only Trince. Mara got chills down her spine when she looked at the Jedi and hoped he would be able to make himself useful to their cause in some way in the near future.

***

Sanson looked over at her husband wondering if this breakfast was going to proceed as all the others had. Snotzenexer had been a little more attentive recently as things had begun to move and take shape in his new administration. The military was now Sanson's to command and no one seemed to mind too much. Snotzenexer had control of the financial market, the trade market, the food supply, and soon the pharmaceutical market. With the success, Snotzenexer didn't need to plan things out so far in advance anymore and some of his conversations at this morning meal had actual begun to make sense.

"What do we have planned for today?" Sanson asked as she saw that her husband was done reading the morning news.

"Well, it seems the talk in the financial market is all about the bank's recent purchase of Custom Shields Galactica. Everyone can't wait to get on board when the stocks re-open in two days. Meanwhile, we need to ensure there is something in which they can invest."

"I have two ships already in the area, fully equipped with a bunch of rag-tag ground fighting vehicles from this government's Rebellion days. They shouldn't be recognizable by the locals and should be able to handle anything that Harmeon throws at them."

"We have to keep this thing under wraps. Misuse of the military is one of the things that brought down Organa-Solo."

"Come on," Sanson begged sarcastically, "give me a little credit."

"I need two more groups of ships also. Do we have any Star Destroyers left in the Varion system?"

"Yeah. There are about a dozen ships left that are still undergoing overhauls at the Varion Construction Yards. What do we need ships out there for?"

"Antilles and Tremon have escaped from Pearson, and I believe they have mineral samples from the asteroids that over-shot Denor and Trewist." Sanson sighed heavily when she heard this. "If they believe that we are responsible for those asteroids, and I see no reason why they shouldn't, the next logical step for them would be to go to the Varion system to check for a mineral composition match."

Sanson nodded, thinking about this on her own for a bit. "Did I mention to you that the 185th members got away last night?" Snotzenexer's face was unreadable at the news. "Well they did," Sanson continued. "I just remembered that Tremon was their commanding officer when they were in service. If their paths should happen to cross before Antilles and Tremon head out to the Varion system, this may be our next chance to remove those three fighters from the picture."

Snotzenexer nodded at the reasoning, but was more than a little skeptical at the outcome. "The second thing concerns Jade and Skywalker."

"He's still on Hoth, right?" Sanson interrupted.

"As far as I know. He managed to deactivate his collar, the satellite in orbit, and his homing device. But unless he has learned to travel through space without a ship, he is still there."

"I remember the last time we talked about this upcoming rescue attempt you said the key to its defeat was tractor beams."

"And it still is. You need to send a ship to Hoth as soon as possible. Have its mission be to check on the droid controlled ships. It will look innocent enough. From the tracking device that is still operational on Jade's ship, I understand that she has just returned to Yavin IV from the Denorid system, where she no doubt picked up the youngest Solo child."

Snotzenexer paused as he took a bite of food. "You are aware of the young lad's special talent?"

"He is supposed to be the most powerful Force user in a while, and I understand he has many talents."

"Yes, but only one applies to what Jade needs. Mara needs a way to get her ship past the blockade. Anakin has only one special talent when it comes to transporting ships."

"Do you mean to tell me that Jade is going to try to make a hyperspace jump through the asteroid field?"

"With Anakin's ability to program navcoms and to make pin-point hyperspace jumps, I'm sure it would be possible for them to achieve it. There are sparse sections of the field where there are probably countless tunnels big enough for a ship every second. Granted they only stay open for a split second before numerous rocks float through the gap, but Anakin could do it."

"He could," Sanson started, catching on to Snotzenexer's plan, "as long as the asteroids kept a constant motion."

"Correct. If Anakin could predict the motion of the asteroids, he would be able to accurately time the jump to bring them though the field and safely to Hoth."

"But if we use tractor beams to alter the asteroids' trajectories just before he jumps -" Sanson rammed an open hand into a fist, "boom."

"Exactly," Snotzenexer agreed.

"Why not just fly through it normally?" Sanson asked after a short pause.

"A valid question. I have no doubt that between Jade and the Solo child that they could navigate successfully, but it would take time. Jade has already taken a trip to Hoth to check the defenses in place, and she found out that the TIE patrols would be able to cut her off before she got through."

"Is there anything else?"

"Yeah," Snotzenexer replied with a mouthful of muffin, "after your forces have annihilated Harmeon's on Rembon, make sure that you blow up the shield factory."

"What?!" Sanson screamed incredulously. "You want us to risk detection in defending it only to have it destroyed anyway. Why not just let Harmeon have it?"

"Two reasons. If Harmeon destroys the factory without any opposition from the Republic, he will assume that I have no power in the military but have to rely on the senate to make my decisions for me. This means that as soon as he finds out we are building another factory in the Varion system, he will have no reason to believe that I have the ability to use the Republic's military to defend myself there either. If we were forced to fight him in the Varion system as opposed to on Rembon, it would be much, much harder to keep it a secret and we would need senate approval. Second, we have a chance to behead the bacta corporations' biggest and most powerful leader. We need to let them know that I do have a very big influence in the military, maybe even bigger than Organa-Solo had.

"If you are wondering why I want the factory destroyed, it's because it would be far too big of a hassle to deal with the owner. The only reason he went along with this deal is because we said that we would leave him in charge. Besides, with a plant in the Varion system, and soon to be other places, we will have plenty of production power without the small factory on Rembon."

Sanson nodded, agreeing with her husband's impeccable logic as always. She was eager to see how all these things would turn out. Sanson also couldn't wait for the banquet that night. She had a smashing dress to try out.

Interlude III

Jaina floated in the endless void between realities.

Jacen "approached" her "slowly."

Terminology in a nether region that was spaceless and timeless denied such ideas represented by words like "approach" and "slowly." A better way of communicating Jacen's actions would be to say he engaged her consciousness cautiously.

Jaina was unresponsive to her surrounding, or lack thereof, until Jacen prodded her gently. If she had been sleeping, her mind would have had her body stir and her eyes blink slowly as she sat up.

"Jaina."

"Jacen?"

"I'm here."

"Where is here?"

"We are nowhere," Jacen responded, choosing his words carefully. "We are in a place the defies spatial existence. We are in the gap between reality and eternity. We are somewhere we should not be."

"I saw you die," Jaina said tentatively, not knowing if the memory or her current state - or both - was a dream.

"I am dead to the world, as are you. My body can not be repaired and has been removed permanently from the physical world. You are not in the same position. Your mind is shut off from your senses, placing you in this plain of limbo. You should go back."

"I would be leaving you alone."

Jacen thought the same thing. "I'm not alone," he lied. "Those who have gone before me are now with me and I with them."

"You sound like a professor, Jacen. Is this a dream?"

"This is as real as it gets, Sis. I have failed, but you should not take my failure as your own. You still have a life to live. Think of your family."

"You are my family, Jacen! Why shouldn't I think of you and stay?"

Jacen sighed. "We can not exist together here as we did back in the physical realm. It wouldn't be the same. Besides, I am just one. You are leaving behind several."

"Since when has quantity surpassed quality?" Jaina fumed. Her subconscious had decided this fate for her, and her psyche wasn't ready to deny the existence yet.

"In this case, quality comes with quantity. What of Anakin? What about Mom and Dad? Are you just going to let them mourn you absence while you exist here with me? This is no type of life for a young Jedi. This isn't life at all!" Jacen calmed himself. He needed to give his sister guidance and wisdom. Including his own frustrations would not help the situation or convince Jaina of the course she must take.

"What will you do if I leave?"

She wasn't going to make it easy. "I will go on," was all Jacen could think of. What would he do? But then . . . "What are we to do if you stay? There is nothing here for us to do. This is a void with nothing but memories. We are all memories here, memories of what we once were and of what we could have become. We stand as models either to be emulated or rejected, but models none-the-less.

"I should not have died. I should not have succumb to my ego or temper. They both caused me to slip and fail during a situation that shouldn't have existed in the first place. What good are these lessons if no one remains to learn from them?"

"So you want me to return to the Academy with the lesson of Jacen Solo, the Jedi Knight who fought to often?"

"No!" Jacen knew what he had to say. "I want you to return to our mother and father. I want you to return to our brother and uncle and to all our friends. And I want you to return because you are alive. If you stayed you would be insulting me more than you could ever imagine. You still have the gift of life. A gift that I only too late have realized is more valuable than all the Force potential in the universe. A gift that is meant to be given as well as received. It is a gift that I did not cherish and have lost. For you to refuse to accept that gift is something that I can not accept.

"Life is not given to be squandered. It is an incomprehensible natural phenomenon that despite our time's advanced technology can not be reproduced. It is spawned from love and continues through care. It thrives in friendship, repelling the dark things of the universe.

"You still own this gift. You have the ability to use it to its fullest or to waste it here with me. The choice is, and always will be, yours."

Jaina said nothing. Her mind wafted around the nothingness surrounding her, slowly coming to realize the truth of what her brother was telling her. "I will miss you."

"I will always be here." With that Jacen left his sister to start her journey back home.

Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Yoda were soon around the dead Jedi. "Is she back with my family now?" Jacen asked.

"She has started the journey," his grandfather informed him. "It is a long tunnel back home, and she must travel it slowly."

"A trip you too must make," Yoda said unexpectedly.

"I can not follow her," Jacen replied curiously, almost asking a question.

"There is another tunnel you must use. It is a tunnel none of us are able to take, but you still have the strength."

"What are you talking about?"

"The Zorian is coming."

Chapter 16 "Rescue Efforts"

Buildings in Coruscant, especially most of the newer buildings, were quite tall.

When the Empire had controlled the city planet, the ruling population had been made up exclusively of humans. The Emperor had detested aliens, even above rebels at times, and most of the non-human population had retreated to the lower levels or had just picked up and left Coruscant. This made it very simple for architects to lay out buildings and pavilions. Ninety-nine percent of all humans ranged from 1.5 to 2 meters in height. This is a very small variance compared to other races.

Now, Coruscant was probably more alien than human and body sizes were not always predictable. Most buildings that catered to the public at large had to be ready to accommodate the wide variety of beings that would frequent their establishments. Refreshers had to come in at least seven different styles. Beds, chairs, even tables had to be built to be as user friendly as possible.

Of course all of the things mentioned above could be retrofitted into most buildings. The real problems started when races whose tallest members were only 50 centimeters joined the Republic. They struggled up stairs, couldn't see out windows, and needed to ask someone to operate door consoles for them. The same type of problem happened with races whose shortest members were 2.5 meters tall.

The shorter races were in a minority, and usually had entire buildings built for them, but the taller races were quite frequent. Because of this, ceiling heights in all new structures, especially hotels, restaurants, and government buildings were uniformly raised. Now each story of a new building spanned a height of about three meters.

Another interesting fact about Coruscant was the matter with gravity. The planet itself, in its original form, was not that large. Of course, by increasing the diameter of the planet by a dozen kilometers or more with all the construction, the surface area on the planet grew immensely. One concern early on in the planet's growth was the problem with gravity.

Gravity wells are created by mass displacing the space around it. The more mass, the greater the displacement, and the stronger the gravitational field. Planets usually never have to worry about their gravity because all buildings are made from raw materials taken from the planet, so they are adding nothing to the planet's overall mass.

Coruscant was different. There was no way that one planet could have ever supplied all of the durasteel or permacrete to build just a few layers of the huge city. Coruscant's construction was the result of thousands of planet's contributions of raw material. This meant that the mass of the city planet was growing as it grew up.

A few concerned men did some calculations and found that although the mass was increasing, so was the distance between the top level of construction and the center of the planet's mass. As one goes up in altitude, the pull of gravity becomes less. The figures didn't come out exact, but it was found to everyone's relief that the adding of mass coupled with the increase in altitude canceled out any gravity concerns. This means that as long as you stayed on the top level of Coruscant, the gravity would be pretty close to ten meters per second squared.

Exactly what all this means can be illustrated by a simple example. Say you are standing on top of a 30 story building on the top levels of Coruscant. This means that you are 90 meters above the top level of permacrete. The equation for distance traveled at a constant acceleration is one-half the acceleration multiplied by the time squared. Using an acceleration of ten meters per second squared and solving for time in this case gives 4.243 seconds. This is the time it would take you to complete your fall from the building if you had no initial downward velocity. Accelerating from rest for 4.243 seconds at ten meters per second squared means that your final velocity when you hit the permacrete below will be 42.43 meters per second, or 152.7 kilometers per hour.

Eran wasn't very good at math. In fact, he had not taken a math course beyond the age of 12. This was definitely a good thing, for if he knew about the extreme conditions of his situation as he fell backwards off the building from which Trince had just pushed him, he probably wouldn't have been able to act as calmly as he did.

As Eran's back became parallel with the ground 90 meters below, he knew for a fact that he wouldn't be able regain his lost balance. He also knew if he fell headfirst with his back to the building, he would not be able to do anything about his situation. Eran tucked his knees to his chest and arched his spine backwards, flipping over and bringing his body right side up.

Eran's flip had brought him a meter away from the wall and too far to grab on to anything as he fell past it. Both lightsabers were still activated in his widespread arms, and the quick thinking fighter eased the tips of the weapons into the wall in front of him. The swords resisted at first, but the fast approaching ground inspired Eran to shove the lightsabers into the wall with more authority. He angled the blades downward, pulling his body toward the building so his feet could scrape at the wall.

Eran had managed to slow his descent somewhat, but a quick peak down told him that in two seconds he would likely have two broken legs. He thrust both weapons into the side of the building up to their hilts, and his arms were nearly ripped from their sockets as the blades met incredible resistance. The young man's entire body jolted violently each time he passed a level in the building and the laser swords had to cut their length in the thick floors.

Eran hit the ground hard and rolled with the collision, somersaulting back from the building. He visually traced the two lines of destruction up the side of the building back to where he had fallen and expected to see Trince's face peer over the edge to inspect his dirty work. Instead the edge of the roof remained featureless, much to Eran's gratitude. He got to his feet slowly, testing his recently compressed legs and spine. His left knee seemed a little weak, but the joint had acted up in the past, and it didn't seem too bad now.

Eran had dropped the lightsabers as he had hit the ground and went over to retrieve them. Both handles were very warm, and Eran wondered if he had drained their power cells too much by his life saving maneuver. He secured them back inside his coat, looked around to see if anyone had watched his descent, and then left before someone from inside the injured building came out to complain.

***

The planet of Rembon looked very serene from 240 kilometers. Lieutenant Commander Paxtin stared at its slow revolution through the double pained glassine window on the bridge of the ancient Corellian Corvette. He had a crew consisting of mostly Republic soldiers, though there were a few of his Imperials mixed in the bunch.

Sure, Admiral Sanson had flown her fleet and personnel right up to the Republic's doorstep, waving the flags of friendship, but old wounds heal very slowly, and most of the usurped Imperials were mixed very finely throughout the Republic Navy to ensure no chance of a rebellion. Paxtin smiled to himself, glad that he served under Admirals Snotzenexer and Sanson. Older, more idiotic Imperial commanders would have never accepted this kind of "surrender," and would have forced officers like himself to go into battle with no chance of victory. Paxtin now understood there was a better way.

The former Imperial was in command of the small fleet (one Corellian Corvette and two assault frigates) in orbit, but if he tried to order his men to start pummeling the planet below, the mostly Republic crew would undoubtedly revolt against him. Sanson and Snotzenexer knew this, and so they had devised more devious ways to achieve their goals.

Lieutenant Edwards walked up to the pondering lieutenant commander. "Sir," he announced with sharp, Republic salute, "the squadrons have finished prepping their vehicles. We await your command to commence with the training drills."

Paxtin nodded his head slowly, indicating that he understood the officer. "Let's wait just a few more minutes," he said slowly, still looking out the window. "The training area isn't fully below us yet. We wouldn't want our landing vehicles to buzz over any of the populated regions."

Edwards looked out the window and saw that the dessert area where they planned to conduct the drills was still a few hours away from rotating beneath them. "Sir, if we just alter our orbital pattern a lit-"

Paxtin held up his hand. "Patience Lieutenant. There is no hurry. Tell your men to check their machines again. We will be deploying soon enough."

Edwards saluted his commanding officer's back and left. Paxtin wanted to wait, but it wasn't for the dessert to rotate into view.

***

Half an hour later, a small fleet of mercenary ships dropped out of hyperspace on the far side of the planet. Harmeon looked at the small planet beneath him and smiled. "Our target is on the western coast of the second largest continent," he said into communicator, transmitting the coordinates to the rest of his hired guns. "I don't want any two permacrete blocks of the factory on top of each other when you are through. Just try and remember what I'm paying you."

The head of the largest bacta producing company in the universe watched as his hired fleet sped towards the surface, preparing to unload their ground assault vehicles. The problem with attacking a factory that manufactured force fields was there was a better than average chance it was well defended. After his mercs took out the shield generators, Harmeon had plans to bomb the factory into oblivion.

***

Back on the other side of the planet, the Republic fleet had just finished loading the last of the airspeeders into the atmospheric carriers and was waiting the signal to begin the training drills.

"Sir," the communications officer on the bridge of the Corellian Corvette called to Paxtin, "I am picking up a distress call from the other side of the planet. It seems the locals are under attack by a mercenary force. They are requesting help from anyone in the area."

"What is the local government's capability?" Paxtin asked, already knowing the answer.

"Not very good sir. The planet is not densely populated and has no strong centralized government and any type of military is only capable of handling social disturbances."

Paxtin feigned a few moments of thought before replying. "Inform the fleet that the drills are canceled, and they are to assist the in the defense of the planet from the foreign threat."

"Yes, sir," the communications officer said with a grin on his face, convinced this former Imperial officer had truly defected. There was one problem with this whole maneuver that made it complicated. Rembon was not a member of the Republic. If it were, defending the planet below would have to be a necessity. In fact, if Rembon had been a member of the Republic Sanson could have stationed half her fleet there without attracting any attention.

The planet around which the fleet was supposed to in orbit, Fertitsip, was a member. Due to a small, intentional miscalculation, the fleet was instead in orbit around Rembon, something that only a few members of the crew knew. Conducting military drills on a planet that was not a member of the Republic was a huge breach of protocol, and if this operation was ever uncovered, the pilot and navigation officer were sure to be discharged.

***

Warren Oiulem watched from behind the protective shield as ship after ship swooped down on his factory, pummeling the protective barrier and trying to find its weak point. The generators were well hidden on the factory grounds, but the owner of Custom Shields Galactica didn't think that it would stay hidden for long.

"Sir, shields are at 45 percent and falling," one of his aids told him. He held a datapad remotely connected with the factory's main computer system. "Regardless of whether they find the generator, the shields will be down in a few minutes."

"Any response to our distress call?" Warren asked hopefully as he watched two more mercenary ships unload a battery of laser fire against the invisible shell. If only he could get in contact with President Snotzenexer. He sighed at the thought, even the Republic wouldn't be able to get here in time to stop the inevitable.

"No, sir, nothing y- Wait. I'm getting a response."

"Who?" Warren asked, but was answered visibly as a squad of six airspeeders swept over head, intercepting three of the mercenary ships and eliminating two of them.

"I don't know sir," the aid responded. "They haven't identified themselves."

***

Harmeon's ship was the only one that hadn't gone down into the atmosphere, waiting for his hired help to take out the shields. His ship was a modified large freighter, and not that impressive next to most capitol ships, but right now it was all the stronger it needed to be. Harmeon had four concussion missiles locked on to the factory's position, just waiting to blow the building to kingdom come.

"Any word on their progress yet?" Harmeon asked as he lounged back in his chair waiting for the good news.

"It appears that they've encountered some resistance, sir."

"What kind of resistance?"

"Airspeeders, lots of them."

"The local military isn't equipped with repulser militia, I looked into it. Besides, the local military has a horrible response time."

"They don't appear local, sir. I believe they are Republic."

"What?!" Harmeon screamed. "What are they doing here? This isn't a Republic world. They have no right without senate approval. They are sticking their nose where it doesn't belong."

"Should I try to raise them on the com?"

"Put their commander on," Harmeon ordered. "This is Norric Harmeon," he said once his officer signaled him that the speaker was on. "This is a private matter and does not concern the Republic. You would be wise to leave now."

"No response, sir. Their three capitol ships are moving around the planet."

"Just give our boys downstairs a little more time," Harmeon begged.

***

Downstairs things were not looking good. The mercenary ships actually outnumbered the few squadrons of airspeeders but weren't centrally commanded and couldn't handle the efficiency of the Republic fighters. Still, the mercs were able to weaken the shields to 15 percent before the last of the hired band was destroyed.

Back upstairs Paxtin looked at the freighter poised above the planet. "Sir, our sensors tell us he has four missiles locked on the surface below. I suggest we take him out?"

Paxtin held up his hand asking for patience again. "His ships below have all been destroyed, he might retreat."

"We shouldn't let him escape then?" the officer pleaded.

"He was right when he said we had no authority to interfere. We can not hold him or attack until he makes a move first." Paxtin's patience paid off a minute later when Harmeon's ship unleashed its concussion missiles.

The shields around the factory weren't down, but were plenty weak, and the four missiles turned the potentially prosperous factory into a large crater in the ground. "You may take his ship out now," Paxtin commanded, trying to put a bit of anger into his voice.

Harmeon made a valiant effort towards an escape, but he had waited too long and the three capitol ships closed on his position before he could get into hyperspace. The freighter only got off a couple shots before it was torn apart by multiple turbolasers.

***

Eran lay on his bed staring up at the hotel ceiling. The wind blew through his broken window, glass still scattered about on the floor. He had escaped from this room the day before, and apparently the couple downstairs hadn't informed the hotel staff. Or if they had, they had not yet examined the room above the vandalized suite.

The former government agent turned Imperial wondered if he didn't have another turn ahead of him. Several ideas swept through his mind. He had delivered the stolen financial records as Snotzenexer had requested, and wondered if he could simply walk up to the new President of the Republic and demand his payment. Undoubtedly Snotzenexer would shoe him away and then schedule his "accidental" death as he had done for so many millions of people over the last month. The skilled young man had laughed at the notion that anyone could kill him before but found little humor in the thought now.

No, he wasn't going to go back to Snotzenexer. Whatever payment was promised was lost wages. Eran thought briefly of hitching a ride back to the Varion system to get reacquainted with his old employers. That thought only flirted with his mind for a few seconds before he discarded it.

Eran knew too much not to do anything about it. Not only did he know too much, but he had also done too much. He felt guilty about Jacen's death and Jaina's resulting coma. Now that he knew how Snotzenexer had gained his power, he felt somehow obligated to repay the Solo and Skywalker family by acting upon his knowledge.

Eran rolled off his bed and pulled up a chair in front of the computer console imbedded in the room wall. He spent a short while browsing the news reports, trying to find something he could do. The big buzz was still about the recent senate debate over the health and drug bill that was passed. There was a huge banquet that everyone and their gundark was invited too.

Eran scanned the condensed list of guests the news reports supplied as he wondered if there was a way that he could attend. The former agent spent a brief while trying to hack into the complete guest information and found the Republic had spared the list from its more high level encryptions. Eran broke into the listing and began searching for those who had not yet returned their attendance requests. If he could masquerade as an invited guest that wasn't going to show up on his own, Eran would have a good chance of getting in. The first male he found in the alphabetical listing was in the H's. "Norric Harmeon?" Eran spoke the name aloud, wondering why it looked familiar. The bells went off in his head like it the first day of the Hankine Festival. "Harmeon is the head of Xucphra, the largest bacta company in the universe," Eran thought out-loud. "Snotzenexer just passed legislation that will eventually end Harmeon's monopoly on bacta. Still, this isn't the kind of event someone like him should miss. This would be the perfect opportunity to smear Snotzenexer in a social setting with tons of reporters watching. What would keep Harmeon away? What could he be doing that would be more important?"

A brief moment of thought sent Eran into a keyboard frenzy. In ten short minutes he had hacked into Coruscant's communications grid and was searching for information on Custom Shields Galactica. Rembon was a small planet inhabited mostly by entrepreneurs. There was no centralized government and no main media net. The place was virtually unknown. "Tomorrow," Eran continued thinking out-loud, "the market is going to re-open and everyone is going to be looking at Rembon as the home of Snotzenexer's next miracle. If Harmeon wants to do anything about it, he has to do it today."

There was no news about any type of attack on the factory, but Eran had a feeling if Harmeon had made a move, the news wouldn't flow out of Rembon that quickly. "If that's what Harmeon is doing, what is Snotzenexer going to do about it?" Very few people knew that Snotzenexer and Sanson were married, but Eran was one of them. With that kind of link between the military and the president, Eran figured Snotzenexer had to have pulled some type of illegal maneuver to protect his investment.

Eran smiled as he worked to pull up a picture of Norric Harmeon. Not only had he found an identity with which to enter the banquet, but he had quite a few topics he wished to discuss with the Republic President, and he truly hoped a few reporters were going to be listening.

***

"What?!"

"I told you you didn't have to come," Mara responded, checking some readings on the Jade's Fire as it sped through hyperspace towards the Hoth system.

"Yes," Ra'tok replied, his voice still frantic, "but I assumed that you had some rational plan for getting us through the asteroid field. Flying through the field in hyperspace is hardly rational."

"True," Mara agreed as she finished her checks and went over to a first aid kit, "but trust me, it is very possible. Now give me your arm."

Ra'tok wasn't really paying attention to what Mara was doing and was suddenly surprised to see her holding a hypo-syringe. "What do you mean to do with that?!"

"I mean to take half a liter of blood from you if you ever calm down. Right now your blood pressure is so high that you might spring a leak and never stop bleeding."

"That's it! I want everything - the whole plan right now!"

Mara sighed at her hairy friend. "Very, well," she lowered the syringe as she began to expound on the plan she had devised. "Anakin Solo," she gestured towards the cockpit where the youth was flying the ship, "has a very special gift of calculating hyperspace jumps in his head using the Force. I talked with him and he believes he can get us through the field. That would be good enough, but I want to trick Snotzenexer in the process."

"This is the president we spoke of earlier, is he not?" Ra'tok recalled their previous discussion. "He's the one we have to second guess while at the same time assuming he knows more than we do."

"That's the guy," Mara nodded. "Anakin confirmed our suspicion that there is another tracking device on this ship. Snotzenexer then knows we have checked the security measures on Hoth. He also knows we went to the Denorid system for a very short while and, if he checked with his officers, picked up Anakin. I believe he knows about Anakin's special talent-"

"Or at least we need to assume he does," Ra'tok broke in, already enjoying this conversation less than the previous one.

"Right. This means he should have guessed what we plan to do. This means he has probably set up a defense mechanism against us. That is what the blood is for."

As Mara raised the hypo-syringe again, Ra'tok stopped her. "Whoa, that hardly explains why you need my blood, or anything else you've done like the scrap parts we have in the hold or the cloaking device we installed before we left."

Mara sighed. "Snotzenexer is going to have to try and do something with the asteroid field to mess us up. Anakin is going to mentally predict the flow of asteroids before he makes the jump. If Snotzenexer can use a tractor beam or some type of explosive to disrupt the normal flow of asteroids right when we jump,-"

"We die," Ra'tok finished for Mara. The Defel could imagine what the result of a ship hitting an asteroid in hyperspace would be like. "So what are we going to do about it?"

"This is where the plan gets a little tricky," Mara admitted. "I am going to try to erect a Force shield around the ship to sense any asteroids controlled by an outside source. Anything outside of the rocks normal paths should stand out clearly in the Force. We will only be in hyperspace for a second or two, so I don't need to win the battle against the tractor beam, or whatever Snotzenexer uses, I only have to delay it."

"But when you sense the offending asteroid," Ra'tok butted in, catching on to the plan, "you will open the cargo bay vent the scrap pieces into space. I assume you are going to rig some type of explosion."

"I have modified the weapons to fire in hyperspace. When I sense the asteroid, I will fire a torpedo at it and vent the cargo hold. It will look like the asteroid collided with us and blew us apart. At the same time, Anakin will activate the cloaking device so we disappear from the Empire's radar. As soon as the cloaking device is activated, all of our sensors will be dead, so the ship will automatically drop us out of hyperspace. We might have to fly a short stretch of the asteroid field blind, but I trust in Anakin's skill."

"This all makes sense, no matter how ludicrous it sounds, but it still doesn't tell me why you need my blood."

"You were chasing that pirate Ronderj for years, correct?" Ra'tok nodded at the comment. "What if I had come up to you a month ago and told you he was dead?"

"I'd ask to see the body," Ra'tok responded, fully understanding.

"If we die in a fiery explosion in hyperspace, there will be no bodies, but there will be trace amounts of DNA."

"But the Empire doesn't even know I exist?" Ra'tok argued, not looking forward to a blood drain.

"There you go assuming Snotzenexer is dumber than he could be. Besides, they will probably scan my ship as soon as we drop into the Hoth system and find out there are three people on board. We better give them three different DNA samples." Without further explanation, Mara walked up to the hesitant Defel, jabbed him with the hypo-syringe, and took the blood she needed. She took the blood sample, collected the two she had already procured from Anakin and herself, and stored them in the hold.

Mara and Ra'tok made their way to the cockpit just as Jade's Fire dropped into normal space. The asteroid field loomed large in front of them, looking far more dense than either Mara or Ra'tok remembered. "Are you going to be able to do this?" Mara asked of her Jedi pilot.

Anakin didn't respond for a while. "I think so, just give me some time. I'm sure there is some sort of mathematical pattern related to chaos theory. If not, I'm sure I could just guess."

Ra'tok cringed, but Mara smiled. "Don't worry, Solo, I would feel more comfortable with your guesses than most nav com's calculations."

While Anakin was searching for a pattern in the tumbling rocks, Mara set herself up in front of the weapon controls. "Is there anything I can do?" Ra'tok asked, feeling useless.

"Go and make sure the hatch to the cargo hold is secure, I don't want to vent us into space when I dump the scrap." Mara spent a brief minute in meditation as she made contact with Luke and told him they were coming. With that done, she spent the rest of the time before the daring jump, concentrating on the two Star Destroyers that were slowly moving into position on either side of the Jade's Fire's projected flight path.

The action would come from one of those ships, if not both. It's just like blocking laser fire, Mara tried to tell herself, though it had been a long while since she had even done that. It was going to be a split second act. Her hands hovered over two switches, one operating the cargo hatch and the other controlling the torpedo. She wouldn't be able to use the computer to aim the missile, but had to use the Force. It was going to be like trying to shoot an arrow out of the air with another arrow.

Mara barely registered Anakin's signal that he was preparing to make the jump. She was so lost in her concentration that she woke from it after the deed was already done. Like suddenly jerking your body to avoid a collision in a daydream startles you into consciousness, Mara was suddenly brought back to reality. Her mind took a moment to adjust to her surroundings, but when it did she looked down and saw she had activated both switches on instinct, and the ship was still in one piece - for now.

When Mara finally began to regain her bearings, she noticed a horrible sound coming from all around her. It sounded like the ship was flying through a bucket of marbles. She looked up from her station and over to where Anakin was sitting at the helm. The forward view was completely black. Mara thought they must be in some sort of nebula when she realized that this must be what the inside of a cloaking field looks like.

"What are you doing?" Mara asked, scared that Anakin might not be as capable at flying blind as she had assumed.

"I'm sorry, Mara," he said, obvious strain showing through his voice, "but I'm not the one who decided to blow up the biggest asteroid she could find."

As Mara realized she was the cause for the shrapnel pelting her ship, the sound decreased slightly. Ra'tok sighed slowly as the noise diminished further and then disappeared completely. "Are we through the asteroids?" Ra'tok asked.

Anakin was concentrating too hard to respond, so Mara extended her senses. "No, just the debris."

Both Mara and Ra'tok sat in the copilot seats and waited patiently as Anakin flew the ship towards the unseen planet. Fifteen minutes of silence passed very slowly before Mara spoke. "Have we cleared the asteroids yet?" She could no longer sense anything around the ship, but wasn't sure.

Anakin answered her by activating the atmospheric repulsers. "We're landing," Anakin said nonchalantly. The three passengers listened as the landing pillions groaned outward from their retracted position. The ship settled down gently and Anakin began to shut down the engines.

"Don't cut the power," Mara said quickly. "I don't want to loose the cloaking field."

"No sensors could pick us up on this frozen planet," Anakin countered, though he obeyed her wish.

"Maybe so," she agreed, "but with the cloaking device activated, we keep Snotzenexer's tracking device from sending out a signal."

Anakin nodded his head in agreement. He concentrated for a brief moment and smiled. "I just took care of the tracking device, but I'll leave the ship cloaked just in case."

With that, Mara, Anakin, and Ra'tok made their way from the cockpit. Ra'tok started towards the outer hatch, but Mara and Anakin veered toward their quarters. "Do you not wish to go outside?" the Defel asked.

Mara and Anakin reappeared a moment later, each wearing heavy fur coats, scarves, hats, and mittens. "Yes," Mara answered, "but it's cold."

Ra'tok, like Chewie, never wore clothes and simply shrugged his shoulders. As Mara activated the hatch and the first gust of arctic air came rushing into the ship, Ra'tok wondered why he had come on this trip at all.

Luke had sensed Mara when she had made contact earlier and was able to guide Anakin's descent into the atmosphere. He and Thomas Thorin, former Imperial Captain, were waiting a ways from the invisible craft. After the stiff breeze created by the craft's descent passed, the two exiles made their way to the invisible rescue vehicle.

Thomas had seen cloaked vessels before, or at least had been told that was what he had been looking at. No one ever really saw a cloaked vessel - that was the idea. With that idea in mind, the former captain was still startled as a door opened two meters in the air and extended a gangway into, what looked like, a different dimension.

Luke took a moment's pleasure at the unusual sight also, happy to see Mara and Anakin waiting for the two men to join them in the transparent ship. Luke walked quickly towards the Jade's Fire, followed closely by Thomas. When Luke reached the gangway into the ship, he looked up and saw Ra'tok for the first time. The Jedi Master's frozen brain had discounted the furry figure as Chewie from a distance, but the obvious height differential became undeniable now.

Luke shrugged his shoulders at the new companion of his friends for now, wanting to get out of the wind first. Soon, both Luke and Thomas were safely aboard the Jade's Fire and introductions could be handed out.

"You have no idea how glad I am to see you," Luke said to Mara. "I was beginning to wonder if anyone out there cared about me."

"You?" Mara said, keeping a straight face. "I just wanted to meet the man who had survived 30 years on Hoth."

Luke laughed at the sarcasm, but understood the wish to be introduced to his friend. "Mara Jade, this is Captain Thomas Thorin, formerly of the Empire."

Mara flinched very visibly at the name, which wasn't lost on either Luke or Thomas. The Jedi let it pass. "This is my nephew, Anakin Solo. Both he and Mara are Jedi of considerable reputation."

Mara scowled at the title, thinking herself as deserving of it as a weekend warrior of being called a pro athlete. She understood Luke's desire to one day convince her to spend more than a weekend at the Academy, but she was happy with the life she had chosen as a trader. Then what am I doing this for? Mara thought to herself. She shrugged it off as the introductions entered the interesting phase.

"And this," Luke continued as he turned to Ra'tok, "is someone I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting."

Before Mara had the chance to take charge, the bold Defel stepped forward. "I am Ra'tok, of the clan Cho'orin, of the Defel. I am pleased to meet you Master Skywalker and Captain Thorin."

"Please," Luke said as he took Ra'tok's extended paw, "I don't care what Mara calls me, but you can call me Luke."

"And Thomas will do just fine for me," the captain added, accepting his handshake in turn. After the formal introductions were finished, Thomas turned back to Mara, curious about her earlier flinch at his name. "Anakin barely seems 20-years-old, but you were alive 30 years ago, weren't you?"

Mara nodded, not wanting to dig up her past right now. Luke knew that Thomas was trying to piece together his own hypothesis as to the woman's knowledge of his name and figured to end the guessing game. "Mara and you have something in common. You were both the Emperor's favorites."

A smile began to cross Thomas' face. "The Emperor's hand," he said quietly.

"It's a small universe," Mara replied curtly, wishing to end the conversation. "In the meantime, my coolant hoses are becoming far too brittle for my liking on this cursed ice ball." With that she stormed out of the reception area and back towards the cockpit.

"Temper?" Thomas asked Luke.

"It comes and goes," Luke responded.

"I heard that Skywalker," Mara called from somewhere else in the ship. "Why don't you and your nephew keep yourselves busy plowing our path of asteroids. Ra'tok and Thomas strap yourselves in. I'm flying us out of here."

Chapter 17 "Cornered"

Wedge looked over the console briefly, familiarizing himself with the old carrier's controls. It had been more than 15 years since he had flown such a craft. Perry Tremon sat next to him, handling the hyperspace controls, which announced their trip to be almost over. "I want to get in and out of here as quickly as possible," Wedge said to the three members of the 185th standing behind him. "The Empire might still have a presence in this system and I don't want to press our luck by hanging around long enough for them to notice."

Mara had neglected to inform everyone else as to Snotzenexer's advanced knowledge on their courses of action, or else Wedge might have attacked this situation differently. If Wedge had considered for a moment that Snotzenexer might guess he would show up here looking for confirmation on the asteroid types, the former Republic admiral would have taken measures to insure secrecy and perhaps prevent the loss of one of the 185th members. As it was, he had no idea the Empire was even now tracking him on radar.

"You guys better get to your ships," Perry spoke up. "We got another two minutes before we reach the Varion system. Remember, you don't launch unless we need you for protection or if this ancient ship's weapons aren't sufficient to break up an asteroid." The three youths nodded at their commanding officers' backs and departed toward the fighter hangar.

***

Commander Krychink had been left in charge of the remaining Imperial ships in the Varion system as they underwent repairs at the Varion Construction Yards. The ships had received severe damage during the escape from Hastrin that still had not been repaired. Right now he stood on the bridge of his Imperial class Star Destroyer in a close orbit around the planet of Iom. His orders were very clear: track the ship as it entered the system, destroy any fighters that accompanied it, but make sure the ship itself escapes intact with an asteroid sample.

The reason for why Krychink should allow the ship to escape was unimportant to him. The commander, as had the rest of the Imperial officers, long ago stopped wondering if Snotzenexer knew what he was doing. The only thing he thought of now were the consequences if he failed.

The carrier jumped into real space right where the hyperspace radar had predicted, and Krychink watched from behind the small planet as the ship made its way towards the asteroid field that sectioned Iom's orbit from the rest of the closer planets. "Swing in behind them," Krychink ordered his helm. "Come in slowly, I don't want to alert them to our presence right away. Let them get their sample and then we'll arrest them for trespassing."

***

Wedge and Perry were concentrating too much on pulling their carrier close enough to the asteroid field to notice the Star Destroyer slowly coming out from behind the small planet.

"There's a big one right over there," Perry pointed to the display.

"I don't want a big one if I can help it," Wedge responded. "It won't fit in our hold."

"Yes," Perry countered, "but in order to get a tractor lock on the smaller ones, we'll have to go into the field to get them. If we shoot one up, we can at least pick up the debris that flies out."

"Good point," Wedge responded and wasted no time locking the old weapon system on the large asteroid. Five seconds and six laser shots later, the asteroid had only lost an imperceptible layer of dust. "Blast this old ship," Wedge said.

"Jon," Perry said into the ship's communicator, "we need a little help in breaking down the asteroids."

"On my way, sir," he responded.

Perry turned back to Wedge. "Jon will take care of it."

***

"Sir," the sensors officer on the Star Destroyer spoke up, "I'm detecting a fighter emerging from the carrier."

Krychink smiled to himself. Snotzenexer had said to destroy the fighters, which obviously meant the Imperial Admiral had expected there to be fighters. It wasn't a matter of the commander thinking his superior officer had been wrong, he had just been worried they wouldn't show themselves. "Launch all TIE's."

"All TIE's, sir?"

The question should never have been asked, and maybe in the old Empire the questioning officer would be relieved of duty at best. But it was a legitimate concern given the circumstances. "All of the TIE's" consisted of 72 ships and only one enemy ship was visible. Krychink had been told about the fighters though, and refused to cut corners when pleasing Snotzenexer was at stake. "Yes, ensign. Launch all fighters."

"Yes, sir," the officer considered himself lucky.

***

"We got problems," Perry spoke up when the swarm of 72 sensor echoes joined the recently ignored Star Destroyer behind them. "Jon, get your butt back here now!"

"Negative, sir," Jon responded, his sensors not realizing the magnitude of the enemy approaching him. "My objective is not accomplished."

Jon swung his fighter expertly in between smaller rocks, making his way towards a particularly large asteroid. Five quick shots with his laser cannons and one torpedo sent debris flying in every direction. "Now, I'll get my butt back," Jon replied, executing a boot-legger's turn and freezing at the sight of 72 TIE's bearing down on him. A million curses ran through his mind, all too vulgar to utter over the open the com channel.

The expert pilot watched as the TIE's ignored the carrier, flowing over the craft like water around a rock. "Captain?" was all Jon could say as he turned the boot-legger into a 360 and headed back towards the asteroids.

Bep and Vince were still sitting inside the carrier's hangar, their coms on but their sensors oblivious. "Captain," Vince called into the com, "what's going on out there."

"Nothing, Lieutenant," Perry answered. "Stay in the hangar."

"Is Jon in trouble?"

"I said stay in the hangar. That's an order!" Perry was the first one to brag about his prized squadron's fighting prowess, but he knew a slaughter when he saw one. He also knew that Jon was not going to be able to land back on the carrier. In order to make a safe landing, Jon would have to slow way down and stay on a constant vector. There was no way Jon would be able to do that while avoiding the attack of six dozen fighters. So far, the TIE's had not fired on the carrier for they could have easily destroyed the ship with just half of the firepower at their disposal.

"I'm going to pick up some debris and then we're out of here," Wedge said, realizing there was nothing he could do about Jon right now. The one thing he didn't realize was that Perry had left the com on.

"What?!" Bep and Vince screamed together. "What about Jon?"

Perry glanced at the onboard sensors and saw that the two remaining W-wings in the hangar were firing up their engines. The captain quickly closed the hangar doors, though he still wasn't confident his rebellious pilots wouldn't blast through the doors to help their friend.

"Open the doors Captain Tremon," Vince said in a tone not appropriate for a lieutenant addressing his captain.

"I am not going to sacrifice my best fighters on a whim," Perry responded.

"Sacrifice?" Bep asked, keeping a cool head. "What are you talking about? We've never even been challenged seriously as a squadron, much less overmatched. What's out there?" Getting no response from his immediate commander, Bep went to the next level. "Admiral, what's going on?"

"Guys," he replied having just reeled in five chunks of asteroid debris, "there is an entire TIE fighter wing out there right now."

"Victory class or Imperial?" Vince asked calmly, suddenly sobered. Though even a Victory class Star Destroyer held 48 fighters.

"Imperial," Wedge responded. "They don't seem to be paying any notice to us. There is no way Jon will be able to land back on this carrier. His ship is equipped with a hyperdrive. We can only hope he will be able to escape."

Jon had been listening to this conversation in his ship, but had been too busy to interject. He had dived into the asteroid field eagerly, accepting the random asteroids to the aimed shots of the TIE's. Two pairs of Imperials had followed him and had died in less than ten seconds. The rest of the 72 fighters stayed on the perimeter of the asteroids, peppering the field with a literal sheet of laser fire.

Jon ducked behind each rock he could find, trying get as many obstacles between him and his enemies. But like Anakin had proven earlier in the day, each asteroid field had numerous lines of sight and many of the shots hit the elusive W-wing.

"The admiral's right, guys," Jon managed to say in between maneuvers. "There's nothing you can do for me, I've got to get away from this one on my own. I'll see you back on Yavin IV. Now get out of here before they decide to stop ignoring you."

Jon watched out of the corner of his eye as the carrier oriented itself for a hyperspace jump, but held off, waiting for the conclusion to Jon's fight. The pilot realized his friends were not going to leave before they knew the outcome. "No reason in prolonging this," Jon thought to himself.

The ace picked out an asteroid heading for the outer edge of the field, and quickly adjusted his speed and trajectory to hide in its shadow. As the rock finished its elliptical flight path at the outside edge of the field, Jon sprang from his hiding place, diving right into the swarm of fighters.

The W-wing went into a complicated corkscrew, which was preprogrammed to spray laser fire in every direction. Jon also activated his missile lock program, firing all nine torpedoes as soon as they got a lock. In this mess of fighters, locks were acquired and missiles were fired every second.

Thirty TIE's were hit and ten exploded as a result of Jon's daring flurry, forcing the remaining craft to scatter and let the daring pilot through their ranks. The TIE's which had not been in the line of fire of the volatile fighter joined in an immediate pursuit mimicked by the rest of the remaining fighters as soon as they had regrouped.

To Wedge and Perry it looked like a swarm of bees chasing a child that had just disturbed their nest. The main difference is that most bees (the ones on Venta Prime excluded) were not equipped with explosive projectiles. Regardless of the number of craft firing on him, Jon was far too good a pilot to let any missile lock hit him, but the constant stream of hardware that streaked past him made it impossible for his computer to calculate a jump to hyperspace. Despite the inability of the torpedoes to hit him, Jon's ship rocked every few seconds as several laser shots got lucky.

Jon saw a possibility for escape when the Star Destroyer entered his field of vision, still extremely close to the planet of Iom. Jon's W-wing was much faster than any of the TIE's but the power drain his ship had undergone during the asteroid field and the numerous shots that had hit him during the flight through the TIE's left his engines screaming for a respite. Jon turned his ship into a collision course with the huge war ship.

Krychink was watching the whole chase scene with some amusement, wondering where the fighter thought he was going. There was another Star Destroyer circling Iom in the other direction, preparing to box the fighter in between two full wings of TIE's. Seeing the results of the fight so far secured his decision to use all the TIE's. Fourteen of the TIE's had been destroyed while they had still not seriously damaged the lone Republic fighter. While it had not sustained serious damage, Krychink ship's sensors told him that the unique fighter could only maintain his present speed for another 32 seconds.

The commander was supremely surprised when Jon veered into the direct path of the Star Destroyer. Krychink had positioned himself so the fighter would go in the other direction where the second Star Destroyer was waiting. "What is he doing?" one of the bridge officers asked.

"What am I doing," Jon asked himself. His action was justified a moment later when his 58 tails swung in unison to follow him and opened fire once more.

"Sir," the sensor officer on Krychink's Star Destroyer spoke up, "we have incoming."

"Idiots," Krychink said under his breath, though he was inwardly praising the quick thinking Republic pilot. "Shields up," he ordered just as several TIE torpedoes splashed against the protective barrier. "They'll never be able to get a weapons' lock on him with us, a much easier target, in the sensors' line of sight."

"Should we target the enemy craft, sir?" the weapons officer asked.

"If we miss, we hit our own ships," Krychink thought to himself, "serves them right. Fire at will," he said aloud to his gunmen.

Jon spun through the Star Destroyer's sights, missing certain death by a hair's breadth several times. Behind him, TIE's were scrambling to get out of the way, several blowing into oblivion despite their haste. The remaining ships moved into a well-organized flanking maneuver, making sure Jon had no where to go except straight forward into the Star Destroyer.

Jon shot directly for the arrowhead bridge, the least armored section of the ship. The ace didn't bother with any of his weapons, but was simply looking for a bare spot on the ship where the turbo laser concentration was the lowest. Jon was way too fast for the clumsy turbo lasers more used to firing upon capitol ships, but he didn't need to press his luck right now. He was instead saving it for his next maneuver.

The TIE's had moved out extremely wide, giving Jon no path but straightforward. That was where he had planned to go anyway, but it disturbed him that he didn't have options.

Krychink saw the fighter coming right for the bridge, and figured the pilot hadn't gotten so desperate as to turn kamikaze. "Helm, prepare the sublight engines. I want full thrust on my command." Krychink watched as the fighter finally made a last second dive to avoid a collision. "Now!"

Outside, Jon dove back behind the Star Destroyer just as its engines fired. The W-wing had still had enough power for ten more seconds at full throttle, but now was a dozen seconds in the hole. Jon felt the explosion as his shields overloaded in a second and his engines overheated and took themselves off-line. All of his lateral thrusters were missfiring sending him into a cruel tumbling routine. He had no sensors, but the last thing he had seen before the galaxy began spinning around outside his cockpit had told him where he was headed.

Jon's forward momentum and Iom's gravity assured the young pilot that he was going to be a permanent resident of the system for a while. The ship nearly tore itself apart as it ripped through the upper atmosphere of the small planet. The planetary repulsers failed to fire and Jon was very aware that he was still traveling at space speeds in excess of ten times terminal velocity. The wind and air resistance of the atmosphere was actually slowing him down as the incredible heat began to melt the exterior of his ship.

Crossing his fingers, Jon pulled the ejection lever and lost consciousness as he was instantly subjected to a force eight times his own body weight.

Thousands of kilometers back in space, the carrier popped into hyperspace, its occupants hoping for the best.

***

Alex Snotzenexer walked up quietly behind his wife. Jill Sanson was half-dressed for the banquet that night, but was neglecting the rest of her preparation as she sat in front of a computer screen. Snotzenexer had no illusions about being able to sneak up behind his wife, so he merely stood behind her and kissed the back of her neck. "Tell me the bad news first," he said into her ear.

"I'm not flexible enough to zip my dress by myself."

Snotzenexer grinned at the comment, as he obliged his wife by closing the back of her green evening gown. He knew that she was reading the events of the day and could hardly believe that her inflexibility was the worst news she had. "And . . ."

"And," Sanson used the same drawn-out pronunciation, "the banquet starts in one hour and I still haven't chosen a pair of shoes."

"That is awful news," Snotzenexer agreed in a mocking tone, standing up straight, no longer whispering into his wife's ear. "It's a good nothing bad happened, like, say in the Hoth system or the Varion system."

Sanson turned to look at her husband with a frustrated look on her face. "Do you want to read the report for yourself?" she beckoned to the screen. "Or do you want me to tell you what happened?"

"I was trying you to prompt you for the information," Snotzenexer replied.

"No, you trying to get me to tell you that my people screwed up and were unable to complete their missions."

"Did they?"

"Jade and the Solo child are dead, along with a third unknown companion."

"Can you show me their bodies?" Snotzenexer asked.

"They hit an asteroid in hyperspace," Sanson countered, "I'm surprised they found trace amounts of anything. No, I can't show you their bodies, but I can show you their DNA spread across the whole system."

Snotzenexer raised an eyebrow at this.

"Harmeon is dead along with his mercenary band that destroyed Custom Shields Galactica."

Snotzenexer made no comment toward this revelation, having already guessed that easy mission would be a success.

"The fighter that accompanied Antilles into the Varion system was shot down over Iom."

"You finally got them," Snotzenexer ribbed. He knew how much trouble the 185th had caused the Imperial fleet both under Sanson's command and Oskiman's before her.

"Well, we got one of them. If the other two ships accompanied Antilles they did not show themselves."

Snotzenexer nodded, taking all the news in without making his own conclusions. Sanson was not an idiot, far from it. Still, he would read the reports for himself later as well as question the Imperials involved.

"Now," Sanson continued, rising from her chair, "all we have to do is pick out a pair of shoes and we'll be ready."

"We?" Snotzenexer said, looking down at his own tuxedo. He had been ready for an hour now.

"You and I," Sanson responded as she crouched in front of her closet and began throwing dozens of shoes over her shoulders as she rummaged.

"There is no you and I, remember."

Sanson stopped her search and pivoted in her squatting position. She was holding two different shoes. "Which do you like, dear? The green one obviously matches my dress but the white ones go nicely with my earrings, though I can't find the shoe's mate. Can one be too green? Maybe if I found a shorter heel people wouldn't even see the shoes under my dress."

"Jill," Snotzenexer said semi-sternly.

Sanson relaxed her tense pose and dropped the shoes. "How long are we going to keep this a secret? I mean Han and Leia were fine as a couple in the eyes of the public."

"Han wasn't the head of the military, and Leia had gained her position without any deceit to uncover."

Sanson rose from her crouch, walked a few steps away from the closet and plopped down onto a deep sofa. "But the people love you. I'm sure they wouldn't mind the idea of the galaxy's most eligible bachelor taking a wife. We wouldn't even have to be married right away. We could pretend to date for a while and then have another ceremony. Could you imagine the celebration when the richest man in the universe gets married?"

Snotzenexer could sense something else in her voice, went over to her, and sat down next to his wife. "There's something else, isn't there?"

"I'm pregnant."

Snotzenexer leaped from the couch in a second. "What?!"

"You heard me. I'm three months along."

Snotzenexer was reeling. Him, a father? He shook the idea from his mind for the moment and looked at his wife. He could see the concern on her face despite her efforts to mask it. "You've gone soft on me, haven't you?"

"Alex," she said, slightly scolding him, "I'm proud to be your wife and will be proud to be the mother of our child, I'm just sick of hiding it. I think we can be public about it now. You heard the reports. The old Republic threat is over. What are you worried about?"

"You have gone soft on me," Snotzenexer said with a disarming smirk. "What happened to the woman who used to threatened officers with their lives for being a minute late?"

"Trust me," Sanson said as she rose from the couch and went back to the closet, "if the kid is Force sensitive, I'll be the first one to throw him to the vornskrs."

Snotzenexer laughed, but also knew his wife was serious. "In six months, it won't matter what the public thinks about me or you. Don't worry about it. Everything's going to be fine. For now we just have to keep our distance in public."

Sanson didn't reply and kept looking for shoes. Snotzenexer shrugged his shoulders and left the room for some last minute preparations.

***

Snotzenexer was still mulling over the concerns of his wife as he stepped from the turbo lift and into a large reception area in the palace. The banquet was already in full swing though it was still 45 minutes before it was scheduled to begin.

Snotzenexer had been hidden on Hastrin and in the Danzig system for most of his life and Captain Tallon had not thrown any banquets for his Imperial officers. To say that the President of the Republic was far less experienced in a social setting like this than someone who had attained his position honestly and over time would be an understatement. Still, Snotzenexer intended to keep his wits and patience about him and he would make it through the night.

"Good evening President."

"It's good to see you here, sir."

"I hope you like Coruscant cuisine."

Snotzenexer greeted each of the dignitaries and senators with brief words and a firm handshake. Three minutes into the banquet hall he already wanted to leave, but the former Imperial admiral set his jaw, faked a smile, and continued to greet his many admirers with false words of friendship.

The hope that Snotzenexer could drink the night into a haze he might live through disappeared when he tasted the first glass of champagne offered him. Though the flavor was excellent, he could tell the palace kitchen had reduced the alcoholic content of the drink to avoid any possible trouble drunk senators could cause. Snotzenexer could only hope the dinner wine would be better.

Though the reception area and the banquet hall were enormous, the throng of individuals crowded in the room gave very little area for one to have his own space. Snotzenexer occasionally found himself bumping into the most exotic aliens he had ever seen, and it was with great restraint that he was able to keep from withdrawing in revulsion.

Twenty minutes into the event, Snotzenexer had had enough and decided his wife was right. The only way he was going to make it through the evening was with her at his side. With that thought in mind, the Republic president went in search of his wife so he could flirt with her and get a few people talking about how they would make the perfect couple. In a month or two they could announce their plans to get married, though the idea of going through another event like this pained him dearly.

Snotzenexer raced through the crowded hall looking for Sanson like a speeder bike through a forest. He found a slightly raised platform in front of an hors d'oeuvre table and searched the attendance briefly. One thing he did notice was that there was a multitude of cameras in the hall. At least twenty of the devices hung from the walls, several of which were probably watching him right now.

Finally Snotzenexer found his significant other and made his way in her direction. Sanson was busy talking with several older senators. "You're only partially right," she was saying, having not noticed Snotzenexer's arrival, "yes, one of reasons the Empire lost was because of the superiority of the Rebellion's fighters, but don't forget, we had far bigger, better, and more capitol ships than you did. The real reason we lost was because of bad leadership."

"You mean they were too over-confident?" one of the interested senators asked.

"No, I simply mean they didn't train their officers well. There were no great tacticians in the fleet at all. The idea was simple yet stupid: build bigger and better ships and build a ton of them and no one will be able to beat us."

"So they WERE over-confident."

"Not over-confident, just ignorant. If the roles had been reversed and the Rebellion had had the upper-hand in fleet strength, do you think you would have won?"

"Of course we would."

Sanson smiled. "You seem pretty confident about that. One could even say you sound over-confident." Sanson raised her hand to prevent any forthcoming comment. "You would have every to be confident you would win, and I have no doubt you would, but if over-confidence was the reason the Empire fell at Yavin and Endor, then it should work for both sides. No, you had better leadership and moral. That's why you won."

"Thrawn is a good example of your point," a younger senator said, joining in and trying to rub elbows with elite at the banquet.

"A fine example," Sanson agreed. "You had him out gunned at a much bigger disadvantage than the Empire had had you, but he nearly won because of better leadership. If you gave me a fleet of 100 capitol ships equivalent to a Star Destroyer, a Death Star, and a home base like Coruscant, no one would even be able to challenge me, much less beat me. The same could be said about former Admiral Antilles or half of the current Republic commanders and captains. The Republic simply trains their leaders better."

Snotzenexer grinned broadly at his wife's boast of invulnerability if she had a large fleet. Not too far down the road, that claim would be put to the test. With a slight lull in the debate, one of the senators in the ring that had formed during the military discussion noticed Snotzenexer's presence and formerly greeted him. "Good evening, sir. We were just discussing ancient military tactics. I suppose you've spent most of your life behind a desk reading financial documents and don't care for such things as battle strategy and maneuvers."

Snotzenexer fought desperately against laughter at the heavy irony and managed a weak smile. "I have learned to become flexible as my responsibilities expand beyond balancing budgets and calculating stock dividends." Several senators laughed at the comment, obviously kissing up to their leader. Snotzenexer decided to tell them were they could place those kisses. "If I may offer my humble opinion on subject. I've always felt the Empire lost at Yavin because the laser cannons mounted on the exterior of the first Death Star used infrared imaging to target enemy crafts. The dual scan heat sensors were able locate the central nervous system of nearly any ship in existence and target its vital systems. While this worked well with large capitol ships and many of the freighters the Rebellion called into service, the smaller one-man fighters were far too fast. The X-wing, for example, could exceed the speed of heat, and a vectorial trajectory targeting system like you would find on most of the new Taranon Cruisers would have been far more efficient. In essence, the Empire was trying to shoot mosquitoes with a cannon."

The group of senators was stunned into silence. They had no idea what their president had just said, but they thought it had something to do with cannons. Snotzenexer reveled in the confusion for a brief moment before breaking the tension. "That and Skywalker just got lucky." The laughs came again, and Snotzenexer smiled through them.

"But the second Death Star incorporated trajectory estimation sensors in its targeting systems," Sanson brought up, not letting the topic die.

Snotzenexer turned to look her in the eyes, genuinely glad for a legitimate reason to stare at his wife. "True, but the Rebellion fighters entered the super structure through an incompleted section, avoiding the improved targeting sensors."

"Have you met Admiral Sanson, sir?" the senator who had been debating tactics when Snotzenexer had first entered the conversation asked. "She joined up only a short while back, not long after you took over the presidency."

Snotzenexer nodded slowly. "Yes, I remember the report. I'm terribly sorry to say that we have not met in person, though." Snotzenexer walked over to his wife, took her hand in his and kissed it gently. "You are truly the most beautiful person in attendance, Admiral. And what beautiful shoes."

Sanson realized this display was the direct result of their conversation an hour ago and she decided to play along. "You can call me Jill."

"And you can call me President Snotzenexer." This earned some more laughs, though Sanson frowned at the comment.

The conversation left the military for a while as several senators wished to know more about the new health and drug administration that was to be put in place over the next few months.

***

Quinton Vermil adjusted the button hole holo camera in his coat pocket. "Is that better, Emily?" he whispered into his cufflink.

"Yes, sir," C2-MLE responded through the small ear com the young reporter was wearing. "The image is coming in much clearer now. Have you spotted the president yet?"

"No, Emily. Have you confirmed the report yet."

C2-MLE paused as her interface with Quinton's ship computer checked the open communication frequencies. "No, sir. The news from Rembon is still unofficial. The attack on Custom Shields Galactica is only a strong rumor."

Quinton tried to look casual as he continued to talk into his sleeve while holding a glass at his mouth. "But the rumors say the factory was completely destroyed, correct?"

"That is correct, sir."

Quinton lowered the drink from his mouth and put the empty glass on a passing waiter's tray. He really appreciated the immediate updates Emily was able to give him, but he was in a very tight spot now. The information coming into his ship was on an unofficial frequency, meaning anyone could have sent it. Why anyone would fake a transmission like this, Quinton had no idea, but there many things in the financial realm the ambitious reporter didn't know about.

The reason this was a tight spot was because he had the opportunity to be the first person to tell the President of the Republic the awful news. His sources told him that President Snotzenexer had invested heavily in the small shield manufacturing company on Rembon and was counting on its existence to be the backbone for his new health and drug administration. This banquet was in celebration of the bill that passed to create this organization, and now it might all come crashing down.

To be the first reporter to break the story would definitely secure him a substantial retirement fund from his employers, but if he was wrong and ruined this banquet because of a false rumor, he would be finished.

Quinton's search of the hall had finally found the president. The young man took a deep breath, brought his hand up to scratch next to his eye, and whispered into his cufflink. "Start recording, Emily. I'm going to do it."

Quinton snagged a full drink from a different waiter, quaffed it in a quick gulp, and replaced it on the same tray before the waiter took two steps. Checking his tux one last time, Quinton began the process of working his way into the ever-growing circle surrounding Snotzenexer.

"That might be true, President, but things don't always work in the real world like they work on paper." The conversation was in full swing when Quinton entered the scene.

"You're right, and I'm sure the administration will meet some resistance from planets not ready to overhaul their medical establishments. The one thing you might not understand is that I'm not trying to regulate each planet's current system. I am only making this alternative available to struggling medical communities. I expect quite a few planets will not feel the need to use this new administration to replace their old medical suppliers, but there are far more planets than I am even aware of, on which citizens of the Republic are dying by the thousands because they can not receive the medical attention they need."

"How are you going to be able to meet the initial demand?" another senator asked. "I have no doubt that in time this administration will grow large enough encompass the entire Republic, but initially you will be forced to pick and choose between planets in need of help."

"Yes, there will be an incredible initial demand, and this administration is going to start from ground zero. That is why we need the farming community to step up and support the change. I believe that if we are able to get enough bacta growing shields in service within the Republic, we will at least be able to address the initial demand."

"Are you sure Rembon is safe enough to be the main supplier, since it is not even a member world?" Quinton asked, seeing his opportunity to enter the conversation.

Snotzenexer could tell from the looks of the dozen senators in the ring that this young man was not one of them. "I'm sorry," Snotzenexer asked him, "I don't believe we've met before."

"My name is Quinton Vermil," Quinton responded, glad he could work his name into this recording.

"From . . ." Snotzenexer prompted, wishing to know the planet from which this would-be senator hailed.

"I'm not a senator, sir. I'm a," Quinton paused, "guest."

"A reporter," one of the senators near Snotzenexer mumbled.

Snotzenexer smiled at the reality as it was made known to him. He was new to this social circus, but he was getting the hang of it quickly. "Are you looking for a quote to print for tomorrow?"

"He's probably recording this whole conversation," one of the senators laughed.

You're right, Quinton thought to himself, and I'll edit that comment out.

"To answer your question," Snotzenexer proceeded, "I don't have the ability to move it. Though I have become part owner in Custom Shields Galactica through my bank's recent investment in the small company, I am not the president. And unless the current president decides to sell the position to me or drops dead of a heart attack, I am bound to operate within his regulations."

The reality of the situation hit Quinton like a ton of permacrete. Or at least part of the reality hit him. The news he had of CSG's destruction wasn't really bad news, it simply meant that Snotzenexer was now the sole proprietor of the company and could do with it as he saw fit. The fact that the company no longer physically existed didn't matter to someone like Snotzenexer. Like so many things the president organized, CSG existed on paper, and that would be enough for him.

The part of the reality that didn't quite make its way through the young reporter's reasoning was that before Snotzenexer invested in the company and made it tradable on the galactic stock market, it did not exist outside Rembon. If it had been destroyed then, there would be no transfer of power and the patent on the shield would have been lost. Right now, Snotzenexer had all the records from the extinct company and could continue with production in the Varion system as if nothing had happened.

This part of the reality also gave Snotzenexer a heck of a motive for taking out the company. This tid-bit of information would be conveniently over-looked by just about everyone who analyzed the situation in the following weeks and months.

"Are you aware of the news coming out of Rembon as of half an hour ago?" Quinton asked, his voice on the edge of nervousness.

Snotzenexer was surprised that the news of Harmeon's attack had gotten out of the isolated planet so quickly. "I'm afraid not, I've been here all night."

Quinton noticed he was suddenly the center of attention. He knew something that the President of the Republic, whom many believed to be the smartest person in the galaxy, did not know. "The word is that there has been an attack on Custom Shields Galactica, and the entire factory has been destroyed."

"A rumor!" one of the senators quickly said, not wanting to believe it.

"A fact!" a new voice said confidently. All eyes turned to the new speaker and watched as Norric Harmeon strolled into the ring and stood right across from Snotzenexer and Sanson.

Eran was happy with everyone's reaction to his disguise. He had spent five hours preparing the synthetic face, something he had done many times in his former job. He was a couple centimeters taller than Harmeon, but beside that, he doubted if the man's own parents could see through the disguise.

Eran had been waiting on the edge of the small gathering for a chance to enter the conversation. Quinton's revelation had been the perfect opportunity. He was pretty sure that Harmeon had been responsible for the attack, and the look he was receiving from Sanson told him the female admiral had believed the man she was now looking at to be dead. This meant that she, and ultimately Snotzenexer, had placed ships at Rembon to counter Harmeon's forces and that she had received report that the president of Xucphra had been killed. The fact that the factory was still destroyed must mean that Snotzenexer had planned it, because Eran didn't doubt for a moment in the former Imperial's ability to defeat a bunch of mercenaries.

Eran decided to speak quickly while his audience was still confused. "As you all know, I am the president of Xucphra, the largest bacta producer in the galaxy. Many people in my company believe that this new administration will spell doom for us. I personally feel that we are simply going to be the first in a constantly growing industry. As the charter members, we will be able to lead the way into this new era and expand upon our already profitable business.

"As I said before, sadly some in my company do not believe that we will survive this change in bacta availability and took it in their hands to try and eliminate the competition. I was just made aware less than an hour ago that certain Xucphra officials hired a fleet of mercenary ships to attack the factory on Rembon."

Eran looked Snotzenexer in eyes, confident behind his disguise. "I know that we were at odds over the passage of this bill, but like I said, I am willing to work with you. I sincerely hope that the Republic forces that repelled my misguided associates, will show them you are not to be trifled with, and we will be able to put an end to these hostilities."

The senators were in shock. Did this man just say that Rembon had been defended with a Republic fleet? Eran soaked up the intense stares like a sponge as he walked up to Snotzenexer. "I want to put an end to our bickering right now." Eran extended his hand to the Republic President. The former admiral took it cautiously, not sure what to believe.

Sanson too was shocked, but she hid it much worse than her husband did. Eran turned to her as well and kissed her hand. "I must say," he turned back to Snotzenexer, not willing to pass up this opportunity, "your wife looks beautiful tonight."

The comment took Sanson completely off guard and triggered her recently acquired maternal instincts. As her right hand was still being released from Eran's soft grasp, her left found its way to her ever-so-slightly-swelled stomach.

Eran caught the motion and his sixth sense picked up on the implication. "And I do wish you two the best of luck. It must be exciting to be expecting amidst this already joyous occasion."

Snotzenexer's rigid composure was failing fast. He needed to salvage this situation, but this stranger - he no longer held any doubts that it wasn't Harmeon - left him no room in the conversation. "I'm sorry I can't stay longer," Eran said as he slowly backed away from Snotzenexer, "but my ship is waiting for me. It's the one that looks nothing like an asteroid." Eran grinned widely at the realization that dawned on both Sanson and Snotzenexer's face when they realized who he really was. His strange comment had been a paraphrase of what Snotzenexer had last said to Eran over a month ago when he had been given the assignment to steal the financial records.

As a look of unbridled fury crossed Sanson's face, Eran made a quick exit.

"What did he mean by that?" Quinton asked, having no idea what had just transpired.

The rest of the senators were too dumbstruck to know what to say. The bell saved the situation as the dinner chimes sounded. Everyone quickly dispersed to their appointed tables far from each other.

Snotzenexer had to concentrate to keep his mind on what he was doing. He was supposed to give a speech to the assembly in a few minutes and needed to remain focused. He was sure the blasted reporter had gotten everything on tape from Eran's reference to a Republic fleet guarding Rembon to Sanson's unconscious motion to their unborn child. All it would take is a remote medical scan by another curious reporter and not only would the pregnancy be confirmed but the President of the Republic would be confirmed as the father. Snotzenexer briefly tried to laugh as he hoped Sanson had been cheating on him.

He had already publicly declared that he hadn't met Sanson, and now it would be revealed that he was married to her, or at least sleeping with her. Thanks to Eran's comment about the fleet, there would no doubt be an investigation into whether there was a Republic fleet at Rembon. The fact of the situation would be revealed. A fleet controlled by Sanson, the mother of his child, protected his personal investment on a non-Republic world.

This was just great.

Chapter 18 "Situation Evaluation"

Luke awoke to an odd sensation.

Back on Yavin IV Luke had often found the need to shut his mind from the incessant Force chatter that existed when you gathered several dozen adolescent Force users together. He had been away from his Academy for so long that he no longer spent his nights deaf to the Force. What he felt now reminded him why it had been necessary to shut off his students before.

Someone on the ship was having a bad nightmare. Luke was almost positive it was not Anakin. Though the young Solo had been through a lot in his young life, he had not been involved in any very traumatic events. The other Force user on the Jade's fire had a many more excuses for a nightmare.

The ship was cold and quiet as Luke crept from his quarters. The hyperspace engine hummed rhythmically, making it sound like the ship was alive. The Jedi Master's bare feet wished that Mara had taken the time to carpet the ship some time in the past, but in truth, after what Luke had been through on Hoth, it would take more than cold, durasteel floors to make the Jedi really uncomfortable.

Mara's quarters were right next to the cockpit, and Luke threw a quick look at the hyperspace display to see that there was just under two hours left in their flight before reaching Yavin IV. Even before Luke mentally deactivated the alarms Mara had set up about her door and opened the portal quietly, he could feel the mental anguish from the private quarters.

Luke looked carefully into the dark room from the ship's main hallway. He could barely see a sleeping form in a bed in the corner of the room, but as the figure rolled over suddenly, a wave of disturbed emotions hit him, and he was assured it was Mara. Luke walked cautiously into the room as the door slid closed behind him. The noise of the sliding door almost covered up the slight wiring noises from both Luke's left and right.

The Jedi Master jumped forward, rolling into a crouch as two stun bolts sped through his previous area, splashing into the floor. Luke took a deep breath, looking at the stun guns hidden behind fake plants. He had thought he had disabled all of Mara's booby traps before entering. He would be more careful next time - if there was a next time.

Luke turned back to look at the bed and saw Mara kneeling on top of her sheets, wearing a nightgown and pointing a blaster at the intruder. Mara lowered the weapon just enough for Luke to see the expression on her face as she spoke. "Come on in, Skywalker. Make yourself at home. I was just thinking about how much I wanted to see you."

Luke never ceased to be amazed at how easily this woman could put him off guard. Luke had fought against countless Dark Jedi and Emperor look-a-likes, always winning in the end, and here he was, caught totally off guard by someone who was dead to the world not two seconds ago.

"You were having a -"

"A dream," Mara finished for him, trying to make Luke understand how stupid this piece of obvious information was. "And no, you were not in it."

"Well, I thought from all the dark images you were projecting that I had to be."

Mara lowered her weapon completely, taking the sarcastic comment for what it was worth. She also realized that she had woken Luke with her dream, and Anakin, despite the youth's ability to keep others out of his mind, was probably experiencing less than pleasant dreams because of her nightmare.

"It was that Zrobina thing you talked about earlier, right?"

"Zorian," Mara corrected as she placed her blaster back beneath her pillow and relaxed to a sitting position on the bed. "And, yes, it was."

"Any new information?" Luke asked, sitting on the corner of the bed.

"Only that this entity or event is coming soon and it has a lot to do with you and me."

"Let me see if I remember the premise of the dream," Luke said slowly. "You are on a barren rock covered world, and the Emperor stalks you, screaming that the Zorian is coming."

"In a nutshell," Mara complied. She paused briefly in thought and pounded her pillow in frustration. "If he would just tell me what it was or when it was coming, I could do something about it. As it is, I'm too busy with Snotzenexer and that whole circus to give this Zorian thing any attention. I just get this creepy feeling that the Zorian is going to be a much bigger threat to me."

"You keep using first person pronouns," Luke said carefully. "Don't forget that we are a team. I don't just mean you and me," Mara gave him a smirk, "but all of us. What ever attacks you attacks us all."

"We'll see about that," Mara replied, glancing at her bedside chrono and deciding to forgo her last hour of sleep. "In the mean time," Mara said, slowly climbing off her bed, "I'd like to get dressed and ready for the day. So if you don't mind . . ."

Luke rose from the bed and bowed in mock respect. "I was just leaving."

Ten minutes later Mara excited her room and Luke quickly evacuated the captain's chair and sat in the copilot's chair. Mara sat next to him without a word and checked her systems. The cloaking shield was still activated and showed no signs of failing. The hyperspace timer showed a little more than an hour left in their trip, and Mara could sense the other three occupants on the ship waking from their slumber.

"Tell me about Snotzenexer and his circus," Luke requested, repeating the comment Mara had made earlier.

"I haven't followed it as closely as I should have been recently," Mara admitted. "I'm sorry, but I was too busy trying to rescue your frozen butt. What I do know is that he is the President and more popular than your sister was when she first took office. He controls the military through an Admiral Sanson with whom he served under Tallon and Thrawn back at the Dark Ring. Sanson has recently been promoted to the top spot in the military due to the disparity of strong leaders after Antilles."

"What's wrong with Wedge?" Luke asked.

"Snotzenexer worked to have all of the old military leaders quietly retired. After Leia's expulsion and your exile, the public was made to believe they wanted a clean break in leadership. Wedge was the last remnant of the old Republic and when he was asked to retire, he resisted. Snotzenexer sent some ships after him with unfriendly intentions. When he and I took the ships out, Wedge was labeled as a traitor and is now on the black list.

"Beyond the military, he has recreated the trade federation to oversee the trade between member worlds, reducing the tariffs and increasing the flow of food to poverty stricken planets. He is also making a move to redefine bacta's role in the galaxy. I don't know the exact details on what he's achieved because it came to a head a few days ago when I was busy with this rescue. I assume the bacta corporations were unsuccessful in preventing his legislation from passing and he now has control of that as well, or at least will soon."

"So the situation is basically 'not good,'" Luke summarized. Mara merely nodded.

The rest of the ship's population slowly filtered their way into the small cockpit and overflowed in to the nearby kitchenette. After Mara was satisfied with her ship's status, she joined the four passengers around the breakfast table.

Ra'tok and Thomas had struck up an unusual friendship in the short while the group had been together. The former Imperial captain was fascinated with the Defel's mysterious race and intriguing lifestyle.

Anakin joined in the conversation very little and, Mara began to have doubts as to the young Solo's usefulness in the upcoming struggle. The youth had undeniable skills in ever category imaginable from flying to fighting to computers, but he rarely did anything on his own. Mara had found that he needed to be given an assignment first. In the next few months, the band Mara was forming would have to work on their own a great deal.

"While we're all together," Mara said during a break in the conversation, "there's a few things I want to make clear. We are all dead. The Star Destroyers patrolling the Hoth system will report back to Snotzenexer that this ship was destroyed and everyone with it. Luke is still on Hoth, Thomas is still forgotten, and the rest of us died when an asteroid collided with us in hyperspace. At no time, for a very long time, can any of us be seen by anyone outside of our circle.

"Luke and I are capable of disguising our appearance, as I'm sure you are," she added, looking at Anakin. The Jedi nodded. "Ra'tok can become invisible easily, though even when visible, I doubt you will be identified by anyone in Snotzenexer's employ. I doubt anyone will recognize you," Mara turned to Thomas. She had seen pictures of the Imperial captain thirty years ago and couldn't make a connection with the man now in front of her.

"This ship is also non-existent," Anakin spoke up.

Mara nodded. She had conceded the point long ago that she would have to find a new ship if she planned on helping out with the rebellion she planned. Sure the ship could be cloaked and still flown by a Jedi, but Mara couldn't expect the oddity of her landing and magically appearing out of nothing to anyone who saw her disembark to go unnoticed for long. "Yes," she said aloud, "I will find a new ship."

The talk continued at a subdued level, everyone curious with what was going to happen next. Mara seemed to have taken the reigns of the slowly growing group gathered on Yavin IV, and she had no idea what to do next.

Half an hour later, the Jade's Fire made its last landing for a very long time. The small group left the no longer cloaked ship and made their way to one of the rebuilt buildings on the jungle moon. Mara cast a mournful glance back at her ship sitting on an over-grown landing site where it was out of the way. She sighed deeply, having a sinking feeling that this was only one of the many sacrifices she was going to have to make if she continued in this effort.

Luke put a hand on her shoulder. "Come on." Mara took his gentleness in stride and turned her back on her ship without looking back.

Mara had been in contact with Leia before they had landed and the former Republic president, Chewie, and a few students were eagerly waiting for Luke. Brother and sister hugged each other emotionally just outside the main building. Leia cried freely, and Luke supported his sister through the minute long embrace. "How are you holding up?" Luke asked after the greeting, holding his sister at arm's length.

"I'm feeling much better now, though . . ." Leia's face suddenly fell as she remembered Jacen.

The look on Luke's face as he privately communicated with Leia reminded Mara that she had forgotten to tell Luke about Jacen's death. Luke took the news well, not having expected it, but letting it fall in place next to the other bad news he was continuosly learning. "Don't worry Leia," Luke said, resuming the embrace, "we will not let his death go in vain. We will see justice done, and his killers punished." Luke had little doubt Snotzenexer had had a hand in the Jedi's death.

"Already did it," a surprisingly up-beat voice announced from the doorway to the building.

Leia looked at the speaker and rolled her eyes. Trince walked up to the group wearing a smile despite the sorrowful expressions of those around him. "I already enacted justice upon the murderer, and now that you're here, we can continue the fight against the enemy."

Luke was taken totally by surprise by the odd emotions emitted from his former student. This was not the same person he had sent with Lando to the asteroid mine over two months ago. His words were the first thing that caught Luke off-guard. The words "enacted justice" sounded almost comical. One enacted revenge, not justice. Justice wasn't so much an action as it was a state of existence. Also, the way Trince proclaimed that they were ready to "continue the fight against the enemy," gave Luke the impression that Trince didn't so much want to see Snotzenexer removed from power as he wanted to simply fight.

The Jedi Master looked questionably back at Mara, hoping for some kind of explanation for his behavior. Mara shrugged her shoulders, not really knowing what was bothering the troubled Jedi.

Trince saw the exchange and realized that even thought the master of this academy was back, the leadership had not changed, and the present state of inactivity would probably continue. With an audible huff, Trince turned about and reentered the building. He was quickly deciding that if the group wasn't going to take action against the evil in the galaxy, he was going to have to act alone.

"He's been like that ever since our ordeal in Coruscant."

Luke turned to see Han and Lando approaching from another direction. Anakin and Luke greeted family and friend in turn. "I have no idea what happened to him," Han continued, "but he has been very aggressive and emotionally distraught."

"He doesn't feel Dark," Luke hypothesized, "just in a very bad mood." Luke thought about it for a while when another thought hit him. "Where's Jaina?"

The lack of an immediate response told Luke something was not right with his niece. "Come with me," Han said.

***

Forty minutes later they were all inside. Mara stood at the front of the small classroom looking at the group assembled before her. So far, no one had challenged her for leadership of the motley crew leaving her in control. It wasn't like she had any real authority or push; she was just trying to be the organizer. She alone had the best cumulative knowledge of the group, and was also the only one who had not yet been defeated by Snotzenexer in some facet.

Even though she wasn't expected by those in front of her to win any wars or lead any battles, Mara felt the stress of her situation profoundly. Like Trince, she knew something had to be done, but unlike the restless Jedi, she wanted to make sure the plan of action was what was needed. Mara had never been so confident in a group's abilities yet so uncertain of the outcome. Mara slowly scanned the room, taking a good inventory of who was present.

Luke was still in a subdued state of shock. He hadn't kept abreast of the financial or social aspects of Snotzenexer's take-over before he was exiled, and had obviously missed everything since. Now to be hit with the state of galactic affairs, such as it was, all at once was very disturbing. That coupled with the condition of the twins and of his Academy shook the Jedi Master to the core. Still, Mara could see determination in the man's face that she hadn't seen since Mount Tantiss. He might have lost a battle with the new president, but the Jedi Master was prepared for at least a dozen more rounds.

Han had a very sobering look on his face. He and Lando were the only ones who could truly appreciate the group's condition. Just about everyone in the room had faced tough odds, but these two had not only made a living at beating the odds, but had prospered. The two of them would likely be the driving force of this new rebellion and without key contributions from them, Mara did not like the group's chances. As much friction as she had had with the pair in the past, Mara couldn't think of two people she'd rather have on her side.

Leia was a mixture of emotions. A month ago she had been the President of the Republic with a healthy family and a promising retirement around the corner. Then within a three days she lost two children, a husband, a brother, a lifestyle, and all support. Even though she was slowly regaining her lost family and some of her composure, she was not in a very stable emotional state. What help she could be in the upcoming fight, Mara did not know.

Wedge and Perry sat at rigid attention, eagerly awaiting to hear what Mara was going to say as if they were two ambitious cadets preparing for a training exercise. Mara actually wished that one of the men would step up to the front of the room and take over the responsibilities of leadership. It would be too much to ask of them though. They were both incredible commanders and excellent pilots, but what this group needed was coordination and diversity. If they had a group of ships with which to fight against the powers at be, Mara would gladly turn over command. Instead, they had nothing. It was no different than when Mon Mothma and Leia led the Rebels some thirty years ago and people like Ackbar took a back seat.

Sitting behind the military leaders were the remaining two members of the 185th. They had all arrived back at the Academy shortly after Mara and her bunch. They brought with them more down cast faces - not quite what the group needed. Mara deeply regretted loosing the group's best pilot, but, at the same time, could now see that Vince and Bep were doubly motivated to succeed, and whoa to any TIE that ran into them.

Sitting near the back was Thomas Thorin. Mara knew little about him, only that he had been one of the up-and-coming military leaders in the Empire back when she had worked for the Emperor. That he had a great analytical mind was not in question. How well he would function after thirty years on an ice ball was yet to be seen. Right now, he was reading a datapad. Ever since he had gotten off the Jade's fire almost an hour ago, he had requested all the information on the current state of affairs he could get his hands on.

In the front of the classroom (probably for legroom's sake) sat Chewie and Ra'tok. Both of them had proven themselves to be very valuable assets either as copilots or as fighting companions. Though they were both very different in race and background, they both shared the same honor code and fighting prowess. That the group was much better off with them was not in question. How best they could be used in the upcoming fight, however, was yet to be seen.

Next to the furry friends was Anakin. He was still a mystery to Mara. He had been toted as the most powerful force user since Vader, yet his siblings had outshined him in every aspect so far, gaining dozens of accomplishments while the youngest Solo sat on his hands. In the next several months, Anakin was going to have to make up for lost time with both of his siblings out of commission and the group in desperate need of Jedi skills.

Lastly there was Trince. The Jedi was pacing in the back of the room, far too fidgety to sit still for a moment. Mara knew from what Han told her that the young man had undergone some very traumatic events in the bowels of Coruscant and Mara didn't even want to imagine what they could have been to turn the Jedi into what he now was. Luke and Anakin both felt that he wasn't Dark, but Mara had her doubts. After all, Luke had spent a long time with C'bouth training under him without realizing his Dark intentions until the end. Senator Palpatine had also remained incognito in the midst of a dozen Jedi Masters. Often, if a Dark Jedi keeps his skills under wraps, not drawing on the Force in the presence of others, his temperament is hard to discern. Whether Dark or Light, Mara knew whose side Trince was on, and she wished desperately to give the Jedi something to do, but there was nothing.

"I guess the best way to begin this session is to start off with what we know. How much about what Snotzenexer is doing do we really know?"

"Everything."

All heads turned to the back of the room to look at the speaker. Thomas looked up from his datapad. "We know everything."

"What can we do?" Mara asked, wondering if she had just relinquished her role as leader.

"Nothing."

The audible sigh of disgust from the pacing Jedi in the rear hung heavy in the room. Similar mumblings made their way through the group. Was he trying to say we should give up? "Explain," Mara requested plainly.

"Admiral Alexander Snotzenexer was a commander in the Imperial fleet no less then two months ago. He led the attack against this Academy, effectively destroying it. He escaped from the Danzig system when the Dark Ring was destroyed and then from Hastrin when it too was destroyed. He hid in the Varion system for about three weeks.

"In a move that shocked the sector, an unknown entrepreneur by the name of Alex Snotzenexer was named the President of the Varion Imperial Bank on Iom. Shortly after spontaneously selling the bank presidency to Snotzenexer the former president died of a heart attack blamed on stress. In an apparently unrelated incident, one of the two assistants to the bank president died in a boating accident. The other assistant continued work under the new president but hasn't been heard of or seen since the transfer of power.

"The president made some bold moves in his first few days, one of which took advantage of an unpredicted terrorist attack on an entertainment industry. Shortly after his new position was secured with the press and public alike, he managed to convince the governors in the Varion system to join the Republic and get him appointed as the senator.

"Meanwhile, a terrible natural disaster occurred in the Denorid system, for which president Leia Organa-Solo took most of the blame. Also, due to a freak mining accident, the reality of the Republic's financial situation was made known and the galaxy went into momentary chaos.

"Enter Senator Snotzenexer. The bank president uses his bank's weight to back all of the existing loans, and quickly puts an end to all runs against the fifty-some thousand credits in the Republic's bank account. He is seen as a hero. Out goes Leia; in comes Alex. With the new president comes Imperial defectors that just happened to be hiding in the Varion system for who knows how long.

"As president, Snotzenexer immediately begins to reshape the structure of the galaxy. He deprivatizes the military, trade, and health care, putting all of them under direct government control. The financial situation he set up dictates that in order to be successful, you have to have money invested in him or you won't grow with the rest of the economy. He reinstated taxation among the member worlds and took over the food distribution market.

"In the end, he directly controls all the money, food, military, trade, medicine, and, most importantly, the citizens' hearts. He has more power and control over the galaxy than the Emperor ever had. The Emperor ruled by fear. The people only obeyed him when he was looking. Now, people are bending over backwards for Snotzenexer, happy to do what ever he suggests.

"In all this, there is only one problem keeping us from action: he hasn't done anything wrong with his new position yet. He broke countless laws, killing millions to get his position, but now that he has it, he hasn't done anything wrong yet. Until he makes an Imperial move, there's nothing we can do that will be supported by others."

Everyone was quiet after this speech, soaking up all of the information, some new some old. Han was the first to speak. "I guess the one question I have is this: is he going to do something Imperial? I was a doubter to begin with, seeing him as just a bank president who was good at what he does. I realize now how wrong I was, but at the same time wonder if the game is up. I mean, why go through all this trouble to rebuild the galaxy only to send it back to the time of the Empire?"

"You answered your own question, Han," Mara replied. "Why go through all this trouble unless he was going to do something drastic. If all he wanted was money and power, he could have stayed in the Varion system and gotten all he wanted. No, he's got to have something sneaky planned, otherwise - like you said - why go through all the trouble."

"If we wait for him to do something, won't that be too late?" Vince asked.

"The penalty for being late is much less than the penalty for being early," Thorin answered, appreciating the intelligent question. "Right now he is untouchable, much like Palpatine when he was first elected chancellor. He is respected by all and looked upon as a righteous man. If we move against him now, while he has the support of the entire galaxy, we don't stand a chance. On the other hand, if we wait for him to start using the military inappropriately, or for him to start raising taxes to an intolerable level, we will have a much larger following. Granted, after he makes his move, he will be further entrenched, but we have to be careful not to make a ourselves out to be the badguys, and if we move against him now, that's exactly how the rest of the galaxy will see us."

Throughout the entire discussion, and the continuing questions and answers, Trince was seething. He had hoped this meeting would bring some action, but it looked like everyone was just going to sit around and wait. He wasn't going to wait. As soon as he could, he was going to get away from these pacifists and start doing some real Jedi work. They called themselves the protectors of the galaxy, but here was an obvious threat, and they were just going to let it fester until it became worthy of their attention. Trince had other plans.

***

The jungle moon was dark and quiet. At least it was quiet in comparison to daytime. With the incessant squeaking and cricking of the moon's insect population, the Academy never knew true peace and quiet, but as Trince crept toward the Skipray Blastboat Wedge had stolen from Commander Pearson, the Academy was as quiet as it would ever be.

Over the years that the Academy had been in operation, the wildlife on Yavin IV had adapted to the student population with which it had been forced to exist. In particular, the very sensitive insects had become accustomed to the buzz in the air whenever a Jedi used the force. Insect's antennae were incredibly sensitive to power fluctuations in the air, and Force energy was no different. In fact, since Luke tried to promote the Light side of the Force, containing mostly feelings of love, joy, and peace, the energy fluctuations that the insects were forced to live with were very positive.

Now, as Trince crept through the night, he was emitting very inharmonious energy fluctuations. These negative energy waves silenced the mating chirps and the overall buzz of activity normal in the wildlife community at night. If Trince noticed the unusual silence, he paid it no mind.

The blastboat was not locked down and Trince boarded the craft with little difficulty. The medium size ship was normally piloted by at least two people, but a skilled pilot could fly one by himself, and a Jedi could fly one in his sleep. Trince busied himself with all of the preflight checks before igniting the engines, wanting to take off as soon as possible after the initial announcement of his presence.

Unknown to Trince, Luke had been watching his progress for the last few minutes. Now as Trince was in the ship, Luke patiently waited for the engines to ignite and for the ship to blast off. Every common sense instinct told Luke to stop the youth before he went and did something rash, but every teacher's instinct he had told him to let the Jedi go. Luke had seen many students of his run off to go save the world or find themselves, only to have them come back within a month, apologetic and wiser for their ways. Luke only hoped that this would be the case with Trince as well. If Luke had known what was actually going to happen, the Jedi Master would have done everything in his power to keep the Jedi on the moon, up to fighting and killing him.

The engines of the powerful ship roared to life, scattering what silent wildlife had been in the area. Moments later, the Skipray Blastboat shot up into the sky and out into space.

Anakin walked up behind his uncle as they both looked out of the window in the dormitory. "He's going to kill someone," Anakin said with a calm voice.

Luke looked at him startled. "Are you sure?"

Anakin nodded his head.

"Who?"

"Himself."

Chapter 19 "Victimization"

Snotzenexer paced nervously in his presidential office. His wife was very busy right now, answering a multitude of questions and trying to salvage a bad situation. Snotzenexer knew his time would come soon too, and he had still not figured out how he should play it. After Eran's little revelation at the banquet two days ago, the media was a buzz with rumors, scandals, and lies.

The one thing Snotzenexer had going for him was the general public was not the mass media. The mass media thrived on controversy. If a story was juicy and provocative, no matter how truthful, the media ate it up. They looked at it from every possible angle, trying to figure out how best they could milk it for every credit it was worth. The public would much rather have mediocrity. Once you got past the small percentage of the population that enjoyed watching chaos on the news, the rest of the galaxy preferred a much more stable environment in which to live.

The public didn't want to believe what the media was telling them involving Snotzenexer, Sanson, and the attack on Custom Shields Galactica. Some of the stories were moderate, giving only the facts, but most tried to twist the story into a gross exaggeration, often closer to the truth than not. Rumors went from Snotzenexer being a former Imperial Admiral and secretly in command of the military through his wife Admiral Sanson to Snotzenexer wishing to return the government to the time of the Emperor Palpatine.

Snotzenexer shuddered as he read these, wondering who in the media had such insight. In truth, the worst Snotzenexer expected was a slap on the wrist saying, "Don't do it again." He figured the Republic enjoyed having him as their president, and wasn't he just protecting the Republic's future by fighting off Harmeon's forces. The argument will be made that if Snotzenexer thought the factory was in danger, he should have requested military protection and he would have gotten it. The problem with that is the approval for protection would have come from the senate, the proceedings of which are not private. If Harmeon saw that Rembon was going to be protected, he would have never attacked, and the factory would still be standing with Harmeon and his minions still at large.

Snotzenexer was still trying to figure out the safest way through this crisis when a small alarm went off on his desk. Puzzled, the president walked over to his desk and checked the readout on his computer.

Snotzenexer had developed the habit of keeping track of certain ship transponder codes so he knew when certain people arrived on or left Coruscant. Right now his computer was telling him that the Skipray Blastboat Wedge Antilles had stolen was landing in a hangar not too far from the palace.

Snotzenexer forgot about his problems for a moment, curious about who was paying him a visit. After punching through a few codes and databases, Snotzenexer pulled up a live picture from one of the security cameras in the hangar. The president watched as a lone figure emerged from the ship. Snotzenexer played with a few different camera locations and angles until a he got a clear picture of the man's face.

The face seemed familiar, but Snotzenexer couldn't quite place it. Keeping a window open in a tracking program that would jump from camera to camera as the visitor made his way to the palace, Snotzenexer accessed another database, pulling up a list of students enrolled at the Jedi Academy. After breezing through the current enrollment, he looked at the recent list of graduates.

"Trince Allister," Snotzenexer read aloud. "Last known to have been employed by Lando Calarissian on a mining expedition." Snotzenexer watched the cameras as they followed Trince up to the outside of the palace. "What do you want, my Jedi friend?"

Snotzenexer watched closely as Trince made his way toward a restricted entrance. Without proper senatorial ID, no one was aloud in that entrance. Snotzenexer watched as the two guards exchanged words with Trince, denying him access. Just as it looked like the Jedi was going to force his way in, the camera went dead.

"Up to no good, are we Jedi?"

The tracking program declared there was an error and the subject was lost. Snotzenexer quickly executed a probability function, letting the computer guess which camera would have been next in the tracking sequence if the subject remained on his current course. Sure enough, Trince walked into the view of an internal camera that monitored a section of the senate chambers.

Snotzenexer only continued to watch long enough to see that Trince was headed his way before he began to prepare for the visit. As Snotzenexer turned off his computer and went around disengaging all the other electronic equipment in his office, his mind began to formulate his new strategy concerning the CSG Scandal. Unless things went terribly wrong in the next five minutes, it could be saved.

It wasn't too long before Snotzenexer heard some commotion outside his office. Skywalker had tried this type of entrance almost three weeks ago and had failed miserably. From the sounds of things, Trince was having more success. Snotzenexer heard the snap hiss of a lightsaber, a few blaster shots, a couple jagged screams, and then silence.

The door to the presidential office slid open and Trince strode in. The President of the Republic was seated comfortably in his high-backed office chair, reclining dangerously backwards. "Do come in Jedi."

Trince was startled by the president's unusual calm. The Jedi was panting, lightsaber in hand, and had just killed seventeen guards. The preceding group of guards had warned each new post he arrived at of his approach. Surely the president should have been warned of his approach a long time ago, yet here he sat apparently unprepared for his imminent death.

Trince didn't want to waste his good luck, knowing that dozen's of guards were about to come racing up behind him any minute. The Jedi stepped into the room, closed the door behind him, and locked it. "Do you know why I'm here?"

Snotzenexer shivered at the sound of his visitor's voice. The Jedi couldn't be more than twenty-five, but his voice sounded like a twelve decade old man who had smoked a carton a day all his life. "I have a reasonable guess."

"Then make peace with what ever you serve," Trince declared as he rushed towards his enemy.

"Wait!" Snotzenexer screamed, not acting in the slightest. He hadn't thought the Jedi would be so forward. He had expected a mini trial of some sort first. Trince held up, wondering what the doomed man wanted. "At least give me the chance to defend myself."

Trince sighed, but decided to humor the man. Snotzenexer got up and retrieved a decorative sword from the wall where it had been displayed with a matching blade. "You expect to fight me with that?" Trince nearly laughed out loud.

"Not exactly," Snotzenexer replied. "I planned on using this." The Republic President reached into his pocket, pulled out a small metal ball and pressed a button.

Trince was not expecting anything at all. His lightsaber suddenly tremorred. The blade lost all stability, swiveling about the focusing crystal like a ball on the end of a string before the weapon exploded in a powerful blast.

The bright light and smoke blinded Snotzenexer momentarily, and the shock of the explosion threw him off his feet. He quickly got up and walked over to Trince. The Jedi was barely alive. The haywire blade had cut into his body numerous times, slicing deep into his side, shoulder, and leg. His right arm was severed completely just below the elbow, plus his whole right side was charred from the blast.

"Wha-" Trince tried to ask, the edge from his voice lost.

"It's called an electromagnetic pulse," Snotzenexer said slowly and clearly. "An electromagnetic pulse, EMP, is the short, powerful electromagnetic field produced by atmospheric ionization during the explosion of a nuclear weapon, or a simulated reaction. When a rapidly moving particle, such as an electron, an alpha particle, or a quantum of radiant energy, collides with a gas atom, an electron is ejected from the atom, leaving a charged ion. The ions render the gas conductive. An EMP may extend long distances, depending on the height of the burst, and can severely damage electronic equipment.

"You see, electronic equipment depends on the microchip, a very small piece of silicon with thousands of circuitry paths. But when the atmosphere around the microchip becomes conductive from the ionization of the gas atoms, the paths of electricity are moot, and the microchip short circuits.

"Lightsabers suffer from EMP at a catastrophic level, as you just discovered. The focusing crystal in your weapon was oriented with a small calculating device. When it short circuited, the crystal briefly oriented itself in every possible angle before the blade cut through the main power supply and exploded."

Trince was moments from death, experiencing again that agonizing moment balancing above the precipice. The rage inside him was climaxing, desperately needing to vent against this pompous man above him. Snotzenexer saw the flicker of anger cross Trince's face and wasted no time slamming his sword into the dying Jedi's chest.

The penned up energy exploded outward, tossing Snotzenexer like a rag doll across his office. He slammed against the far wall, and a searing bolt of pain shot through his shoulder. Snotzenexer crawled weakly over to his desk, opened a drawer, and removed a laser cutter. With two quick motions, he cut his side and slashed his arm. He placed the cutter back in his desk and crawled back to the wall, where he passed out from the pain and exertion.

***

"Good evening, Coruscant. We're here tonight with Senator Ellynor Belsiphvin. Senator Belsiphvin, it's good to have you on the show."

"It's good to be here, Rellin. This government wants to stay in touch with its people."

"I'm sure it does. And I'm sure we all want to see this crisis come to an end as quickly as possible."

"I'm not so sure I would call it a crisis, Rellin. After all, isn't the Republic in its best shape in decades?"

"Yes it is, but so soon after Organa-Solo left office under less than normal circumstances, this incident with Custom Shields Galactica comes as a bit of a shock to everyone. We all thought the use of our military for private matters was over."

"I can assure you and the audience that the Republic military is under the control of the government - the entire government - and President Snotzenexer has no more influence over it than he should."

"You said that very well, Senator. He 'has no more influence over it than he should.' How much influence should he have over the military?"

"These last few weeks have been very exciting, Rellin. A lot has happened and many things have been influenced by these happenings. It is very hard for the average citizen - and even the average senator - to keep track of everything. During this time of organized chaos, President Snotzenexer has been the one person able to make sense of everything. The universe has turned upside down in the last month and it is only because of President Snotzenexer that the galaxy came through the ordeal better than when it had started."

"That hardly answers my question, Senator."

"But it does. Snotzenexer was the only person who understood the events leading up to the attack at Rembon well enough to act. And what did he do? He merely made sure there was a small portion of the fleet in the sector. He did not order any attacks, nor could he. He only positioned us so we would be able to defend our property."

"Don't you mean, his property?"

"I don't mean his property at all. At the time President Snotzenexer did not own Custom Shields Galactica-"

"But he does now."

"- he was only acting as a president should. He protected the future of the galaxy's medical community from those who wished to jeopardize its potential prosperity. You must remember that President Snotzenexer is not the aggressor here. And it is not he alone who is being attacked. Change is in the air. Everyone with any grasp on reality can sense it. Change scares people, regardless of the good it can bring. A scared public is a dangerous public."

"I don't really think the public is scared at the changes Snotzenexer is bringing. I think they are more scared that he might be bringing the galaxy back to an Imperial era."

"I hardly think that is an issue here. This is not the venue in which one discusses rumors. And that is all they are, Rellin. Snotzenexer has recently been forced to release is resume to the public to clear himself of any Imperial history. He has spent his entire life in banking and finance."

"What about his relationship with Admiral Sanson?"

"If you were banging your producer, would you want your audience to know?"

"Uh, I, Sena-"

"Of course not. Regardless of the terms of the relationship, you would fear that your audience would think your position was gotten through less than honorable means. President Snotzenexer and Admiral Sanson are a happy couple that did not want the public to speculate and hypothesize what might be the case. As it stands, Admiral Sanson achieved her position through actions taken by the former head of military. Actions that the president had no influence over. As admiral, she has performed remarkably well."

"Still the public was lied to."

"What the public doesn't know is what makes them the public. Do you know whom I'm seeing right now? No, you don't. Nor do I know whom you're involved with. People's private matters should remain private. As I said before, we do not want to have an anxious or frightened public."

"There you go again, accusing the average citizen as being responsible for this crisis."

"And there you go calling it a crisis again. Let me share with you a piece of information that will no doubt triple your ratings. Less than one hour ago, President Snotzenexer was violently attacked by a Jedi. The Jedi killed seventeen people on his way to the presidential office. Our president met the challenge head on, sustaining serious wounds, yet emerging the victor."

"Is this true?"

"All of it. Now tell me, aren't the Jedi supposed to be the protectors of the galaxy? Yet now on two different occasions, a Jedi has tried to - and in this case succeeded - attack our president. If this isn't a rebellion against change, I don't know what is.

"The citizens of the Republic need to understand that we are trying to provide them with the best living conditions possible. Now is the best time to go into business for yourself. The galaxy has seen true peace for the first time in eons. Hunger and disease are soon to be only memories. We will continue to provide our people with everything they need, but we can not fight against them. Change is good, everyone just needs to see that."

The holo-vid clicked off. "It continues for another good twenty minutes. The show is set to air in two hours," Senator Belsiphvin said.

Snotzenexer continued to stare through the air above the holo projector, thinking about what was going on. His arm was in a sling after dislocating his shoulder, and he winced in pain every time he moved from his self-inflicted side injury. Despite the pain he was in, he smiled to himself.

Several months ago, Captain Tallon had made Snotzenexer, then a commander, play the role of a prosecuting attorney against Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Though it had been a kangaroo court, Snotzenexer had prepared for that trial by reading up on several court techniques. What was going on now was one of the more famous legal maneuvers. Make the accused look like the victim.

Snotzenexer had misused the military. No matter how you sugar coated it, he had committed a political crime. Not only that, but he had lied about his relationship with his wife. It appeared the government was willing to look past these offenses for the overall good of the people.

"There are two ways we can play this," Belsiphvin began, laying out the scenario Snotzenexer had just gone through in his mind. "You can be the accused or the victim. Due to your unfortunate encounter earlier today, I feel we must peruse the latter."

"It seems best," Snotzenexer replied.

"Regardless of the public's response to this incident, your actions over the past few days still remain. There will be no punishment, as the senate feels you acted in a manner consistent with the good of the Republic. But I must warn you, you have slightly blemished you previously perfect image in the eyes of some of the senators."

Snotzenexer absorbed this commentary stoically. Score one for the rebels, he thought. Though, whatever instability Eran might have inspired by his actions, Trince's attack went a long way to negate it. It also put Snotzenexer in a good position to call down distrust on the Jedi and all who sympathized with them, though he was sure the public would take up that vendetta without his help.

Even though the rebels now had a point in their favor, that seemed to be all they had. He had gone over the reports from the Hoth system and came to the same conclusion his wife had. Jade and the young Solo child were dead. Skywalker was still on Hoth, also probably dead by now.

After Eran's unexpected visit, Snotzenexer had done a little investigating on his own. The former government agent had landed on Coruscant in the Solo twin's ship. It was the same ship that had chased down a supposed thief several weeks earlier. The Jedi twins had chased Eran, and the young man had returned without them, flying their ship.

Now the only Jedi left were just students, and without a teacher or public support, he didn't feel threatened in the slightest. After he let this little "crisis" blow over, he would be able to start putting his real plans into motion.

***

Thomas Thorin began watching the nightly Coruscant talk show in his room, but within two minutes after the announcment of the guest, the entire group on Yavin IV was gathered in a classroom before a giant holo projector. Everyone remained quiet through the bit about the Jedi attack. They all knew who it was, and everyone felt responsible for not seeing it coming and doing something about it.

The deed was done, no matter who took the blame. They all also knew that the galaxy was going to be a very hostile place for them in the weeks and months to come. Any chance they had of gathering sympathy seemed hopeless. It looked like Snotzenexer had tied up all the loose ends.

Chapter 20 "Some Loose Ends"

The two lightsabers clashed violently together as the two combatants struggled against each other. The moves seemed too fluid to be possible. Each parry perfectly intercepted every strike; each strike efficiently transforming into the next parry. The two fighters moved through a set of motions that seemed choreographed, too exact for reality.

Suddenly one of the fighters faltered, slipping on an unseen patch of oil. His opponent pressed the attack, striking hard at the handle of the stumbling Jedi's weapon. The fallen Jedi suddenly yelped in pain, dropping his sword with a clatter. He hopped up from his prone position, shaking his hand violently from the pain before putting his injured fingers in his mouth.

"Cut, cut, cut, cut!"

The uninjured fighter looked off to the side as the director came on to the set. "You're not supposed to actually hit him, Francis. What are you trying to do, hurt the star of the picture?"

"I'm sorry, Curtis, but he was supposed to block it."

Curtis looked at his injured star still nursing his sore fingers. Humph, some Jedi. "Yes, well, he's also the headliner in this movie and he has the right to improvise. You other so-called actors are supposed to adjust to his improvisation."

Francis tried to put up some more protest, but Curtis cut him off. "Everyone take ten. No, make that thirty."

Borrel Curtis went back to his director's chair, drowned in his misery. How did he end up here? He used to be one of the biggest players in the entertainment industry. He had had hundreds of people that followed his every suggestion and only a few people above him. That was before the terrorist attack. Everyone remembered the attack on the entertainment industry. It had been called the Snotzenexer miracle.

The Varion Imperial Bank had just acquired a new bank president and he started making big moves immediately. His first one was to remove any investments the large bank had in the entertainment company. All of Curtis' colleagues instantly took a strong disliking towards the president. That resentment would have continued after the terrorist attack, if anyone but Curtis had survived.

Curtis had been out supervising a documentary shoot and had escaped the destruction that wiped out his company. Now he was a two-bit director working for one of his former competitors. Curtis cursed Snotzenexer everyday. At first he was just sour at the fact the president had taken advantage of his misfortune, but after the Skywalker incident, it grew to more than simple resentment.

Curtis idolized the Jedi. He was in the process of shooting the fourth movie in the Jedi Chronicles, a series started by his old company and picked up by his new employers. Luke Skywalker had been a hero to Curtis, so when it turned out that the Jedi Master and Snotzenexer were on opposite sides, Curtis became suspicious. If Snotzenexer was such a great man, why did the ultimate protector of the universe have a problem with him? Curtis set out on a mission to try and smear the president's name as much as he could, but he just couldn't find any dirt on him.

The producer of the film came up to Curtis during the thirty-minute break. "Have you heard the news?"

Curtis had heard a lot of news. "What?"

"President Snotzenexer has been attacked by another Jedi. The Jedi had just graduated last year and killed seventeen guards before Snotzenexer got him."

"President Snotzenexer killed a Jedi?!" Curtis didn't believe it for a second.

"The report says he defended himself with a sword. He took several severe cuts but managed to slice the Jedi's lightsaber in half. The weapon exploded, injuring the Jedi and allowing Snotzenexer to finish him."

Curtis shook his head slowly. Something was definitely up now. There was no way Snotzenexer could ever beat a Jedi who had just killed seventeen armed, palace guards. Now, more than ever, Curtis was determined to figure out this mysterious Republic President and uncover any secrets he might be hiding. And when he did, he would make sure the whole galaxy knew about it, or at least everyone who watched his news program.

***

Ferris Loyran read the report with an upraised eyebrow. He was the President of the Varion Construction Yards and knew more than was healthy. He had been allowed into Snotzenexer's confidence back when the Republic President was only an ambitious entrepreneur. The reason Loyran had been so blessed was that he knew too much and Snotzenexer had to promise him financial security to keep him quiet.

Loyran had seen right through Snotzenexer's many tricks, though he had never guessed how many tricks there would be. The financial wizard had first approached him with a proposal to buy up a small propulsion company that was about to go under. Snotzenexer was going to purchase all their available stock, and then the Varion Construction Yards would annex the smaller company into their own, making Snotzenexer's stock incredibly valuable.

The deal had been sweet for both parties. Snotzenexer's bank made a huge profit, and now the bank was a part owner of the construction yards, giving VCY access to a very large amount of other financial markets and to a large credit extension. In the meantime, VCY was contracted to overhaul more than two dozen Star Destroyers that had only recently entered the Varion system and had been hiding in the asteroid field.

Now the reports coming out of Coruscant were saying that Snotzenexer had been involved with scandals involving the military and Admiral Sanson. Loyran had known about the marriage between the two long ago. Sanson had found it necessary to drop her husband's name in order to gain access to Loyran's office back when the deal to overhaul the Star Destroyers was struck.

In an effort to quell the people's fears, both Sanson and Snotzenexer were releasing their personal histories to show they had no hidden motives. The history said that Sanson had broken away from the Empire ten years earlier and had been hiding in various systems ever since. She had spent two years in the Varion system before she met Snotzenexer and the bank president had convinced her to defect to the Republic.

Loyran knew this was a flat out lie. He had several observation satellites patrolling the asteroids looking for rich pockets of ore and had conclusive reports that Sanson had not entered the Varion system longer than three months ago. Loyran also knew that no one else had access to that information, as the asteroid field was normally left alone accept by his company.

Loyran also knew that the Star Destroyers his company was working on were equipped with cloaking devices. While cloaked ships were prominent in the Empire at one time, they had not been seen (isn't that the idea though) for a dozen years. It wasn't until the Imperial activity in the Danzig system started three months ago that cloaking devices made a resurgence. Now, shortly after the Imperial defeat in the Danzig system, here were two dozen ships equipped with the unique technology.

Loyran could not argue with Snotzenexer's professed history of banking and financial endeavors, but he had his hunches. A fleet of Star Destroyers recently defeated did not normally just give up and turn themselves in to the enemy unless they had a plan. If there was an Imperial plan, Snotzenexer had to be involved.

The real question was "What was Loyran going to do with this information?" For now, nothing. He was living the high life right now, due mostly to Snotzenexer's constant financial success. With his success, the Varion Imperial Bank succeeded. And with the bank's success, the Varion Construction Yards prospered.

Loyran decided to sit on his hands for several reasons other than the money. If Snotzenexer was Imperial and Loyran decided to turn on him, the VCY president had no doubt that the dozen Star Destroyers still tied up at his space docks would turn him and his company into rubble. Also, if Snotzenexer started to pull Imperial moves, he would need to have influence all over the galaxy. With Loyran already informed as he was, he thought himself the logical choice.

Loyran wasn't naive, though. He knew that if Snotzenexer was Imperial, then there was a good chance he didn't have one sympathetic bone in his body. If it turned out that Loyran knew too much, Snotzenexer would wipe him out. Loyran half expected a gunman to show up at his door every morning or for a bomb to take out his luxury aircar every time he started it up. Because of this concern, Loyran had a back-up plan. If Snotzenexer ever tried to take him out, he would be ready to strike back.

With all this in mind, Loyran still found it easy to relax. While he realized there was a chance Snotzenexer was crooked, he put the odds of the new president turning the Republic back into the Empire at ten to one. Things just seemed to be running too smoothly to change. And that was just fine with Loyran.

***

Sandie Hollins pondered the reports coming out of Coruscant too. Her position as acting President of the Varion Imperial Bank was solely the result of Snotzenexer. If anyone should be on the Republic President's side, it should be her. Instead, she was beginning to have her doubts.

It was tax time, and the IRS (Iom Revenue Service) was looking at the bank with hungry eyes. The bank had turned enormous profits, most of which had been done with little or no paper work. Sandie was finding out that Snotzenexer had bypassed most of the vital paper work involved with maintaining a bank of this size, and most tax exemptions or deductions the bank should have been entitled to were missing.

Sandie had found it necessary to hire three different accounting firms to do internal audits on the bank's income statements. Every day they came to her with pile after pile of papers that needed her signature. Most of these papers should have been signed by Snotzenexer during his first few days, but had been passed over. In addition to the accounting firm's exorbitant fees, Sandie had found it necessary to promise them ten percent of tax savings they were able to give the bank. It hadn't sounded like much to begin with, but after the accounting firms began to dig around a little, they found figures with more zeros than you might find in an average cereal bowl of Deflan O's.

With the digging came discrepancies. The first one that had caught Sandie's attention was the depreciation loss on the bank's security equipment. Depreciation on the expensive equipment was usually high do to the frequency of electric storms on Iom. Shortly after Snotzenexer had taken control, the bank had purchased new security equipment along with a new network system. The bank had experienced a huge loss on disposal when they had replaced the equipment, and the tax reimbursement was significant.

When trying to figure out why the depreciation method for the equipment had failed so miserably, Sandie noticed that Snotzenexer had not dealt with the bank's normal electronics supplier. Not only had he disposed the equipment with someone out of system, he had purchased the new equipment with the same dealer. The really curious part of this information was that the dates for the purchase and arrangement of disposal predated Snotzenexer's take over of the bank. Apparently Snotzenexer had bought the bank's new equipment before he had become president.

While it was very possible, and likely, that Snotzenexer had foreknowledge of his presidency, the existing president should have been the one to finalize the deal. Instead it appeared that the former bank president didn't even know about it, hence the loss on disposal.

There were other things. Huge sums of money had been funneled to the Varion Construction Yard with no more than a receipt of withdrawal to accompany them. The accounting firms jumped on these by having Sandie sign papers declaring the transfers as charitable donations, and thus tax deductible.

The one thing that concerned Sandie the most was Snotzenexer's dealings with her former bank back in the Detsgor system. Of all the banks Snotzenexer had placed money in, her bank had received the largest investment. The Galactic Bank in the Detsgor system had neither been the biggest bank Snotzenexer had dealings with, nor had it been the most profitable. Her bank had offered investors moderate, but consistent returns. Still, Snotzenexer had put more money in her bank than any other by almost 50 percent.

Sandie now understood the situation that her former boss, President Overn, had been in. He had called out for the Republic to repay a loan that the bank would have normally taken as a loss. The reason became obvious now. The percentage loss to all the shareholders would have been minimal, but due to the enormity of Snotzenexer's investment, the actual value for the bank president would have been staggering.

It was far too much of a coincidence for Sandie to handle. Snotzenexer had taken control of the Republic financially and then politically, as a direct result of what her bank had done. Of course for Snotzenexer to plan it, he would have had to have foreknowledge of the accident on Xentin. That was something Sandie refused to believe.

***

The flight attendant announced the trip would take shortly over 53 hours.

The passengers were required to stay in their seats during take-off and landings. Ships as large as the commercial space liner normally did not enter atmospheres, but for convenience's sake, this one did. This meant that take-off was rather intense as a result of the enormous thrust required to break gravity.

After the rough ride was over, Eran unbuckled himself and made his way back to his personal quarters. He had very little money left and could only afford third class accommodations.

Eran was headed back to his home on Iom. He didn't really know what he was going to do there, but he didn't want to press his luck hanging around Coruscant with Snotzenexer no doubt looking for him. He was taking a very big risk by taking the public space liner. If Snotzenexer had managed to find him before he boarded, the large ship would suffer a major accident, loosing all passengers. Snotzenexer's proficiency of orchestrating catastrophic accidents was very well known to Eran.

Eran simply had to bet that the media attention Snotzenexer was receiving had not allowed him to track down the sneaky government agent. That title was something that Eran didn't want to remember. His employers had told him to take a long vacation. Well he had, and while he didn't want to ignore what Snotzenexer was doing, he felt if he joined back up with the government agency, he might have access to more resources with which to combat the new Republic President.

Now all Eran could do was wait and hope the space liner wasn't carrying any of Snotzenexer's "special" cargo.

***

"Doctor, could you please have a look at this patient?"

Doctor Herium was having a slow day, and nodded at his nurse's request. They walked quickly through the halls of one of Iom's finest hospitals. As they walked, the nurse began to explain. "We received this patient last night while you were off. He appears to have been in some kind of severe accident. Both his legs are badly broken and he is suffering from blood loss and hypothermia."

The doctor nodded. Blood loss usually implied hypothermia or shock of some sort, but as Herium looked out a window into the cool morning air, he understood that as winter was quickly approaching, hypothermia would even occur without the loss of the body's heating fluid.

"We don't have a name, age, or even a guess at background. One of the emergency medical droids that roams the mountains looking for skiers picked up his life sign and brought him in. A droid search party found his vehicle several kilometers from his body. I call it a vehicle because its exact definition couldn't be gathered from the wreck. I've seen pictures, and believe me, he had to have ejected because no living creature could have survived that accident."

The medical pair finally reached the patient's room and the doctor stopped cold. He had never seen anything like this. There were two beds in the room set up in a "T." The reason of the set up was because the patient was easily over two meters tall. One of his legs was upraised with a local freezing unit on his foot, extending halfway to his knee. The other leg was down and looked like it had three knees. Both the thigh and shinbones were broken at drastic angles, breaking the skin in both locations. Local freezing units surrounded both of those breaks with intravenous hookups in both places.

"Let me guess," the doctor started as he walked over to the patient, "he's not Varion?"

"Correct, Doctor."

Doctor Herium shook his head and sighed. Though Varion's appeared human in every respect, they had two hearts and very unique blood. Because of this, and the small number of off worlders living on Iom, most hospitals did not have a large supply of universal human blood on hand.

"You've put a request into the main bank, I assume?" Herium asked.

The nurse nodded. "The blood should arrive later today. They could only spare four pints, which might not be enough to set the bone and initiate healing. We didn't want to try and set it last night for fear we might start more internal bleeding."

"You made the right decision," the doctor said as he bent over to look more closely at the wounds. He knew why he was called into service for this case. He was probably the best bonesetter on the entire planet, but his skills would be put to the test here. "We are going to have to set it once the blood arrives. If we wait much longer, the muscle atrophy will ensure that he never walks again. As it is, I'd give him a fifty-fifty chance."

Herium took a step back to look at the rest of his patient. His skin was very pale and breathing was incredibly shallow. He was in an induced, medical comma with IV's hooked up to every main blood vessel the nurses could find. Though they didn't have this young man's blood type in stock, they were able to fill his remaining blood with every nutrient imaginable.

Out of curiosity, the doctor pulled back the whit sheets to see what the patient was wearing. The nurses had not bothered to remove his clothes other than to slice up his pants to get at his wounds. He was wearing some type of flight or cold-weather suit. It was featureless except for an oval emblem on the breast. It was a picture of a three-eared bat, a wusket if Herium wasn't mistaken. The bat's wings were folded in such a way to make the creature look like a flying "W."

"I hope you make it buddy," the doctor said before he left to go study the young man's x-rays.

Interlude IV

Jaina and Mara woke up at the same time.

"The Zorian is here!!!"

TO BE CONTINUED . . . . AGAIN

   [1]: mailto:dpontier@hotmail.com
   [2]: http://www.geocities.com/piqsid/stories.html



	3. A New Rebellion

A New Rebellion

by David Pontier

[dpontier@hotmail.com][1]

[Homepage][2]

Prelude "The Zorian"

Darth Sidious grinned.

This act seemed impossible to one who had no face, but small technicalities like that did not bother the Dark Lord right now. His existence over most of the last three decades had been one of turmoil and suffering. His mind had not been able to cope with the fact that he had failed. And now that his time on the physical realm was past, he had to "live" with the agony of that failure.

A boy and his father had defeated him. The greatest children's author in the galaxy could not have written a more touching scene. The son had been rejected - even hated - by his father, but at the end, love had won out and hatred and evil had been thrown down an elevator shaft and forgotten.

The Zorian was coming, and now Darth Sidious had the ability to change all that. Though the Zorian was coming, it was, in a sense, already here. In the nether realm time had no meaning. Sidious floated around without occupying space or time. His existence was a mental one, and his mind's consciousness had long ago transcended time. The wait was more of a crescendo than it was an actual passing of time.

In the physical realm minutes, hours, days, and years passed by like the landscape to a speederbike. At the same time, a split second in the land of the living could last upwards of a century for any given spirit in the nether realm. This meaningless idea of time meant that interaction between the two realms took great skill. The skill to act upon the physical realm was not a matter of timing. It was not a when, but a how and a what.

The "what" was simple: The Zorian. The how was a bit trickier.

The universe is infinite. The idea of infinity is not explainable for no mind could remain sane if it were to glimpse even a portion of the concept. Because of this, those who have to exist in it break up the universe into more easily handled portions. The infinite fabric of the universe has been stretched in places to allow finite amounts of mass. It is these points of mass on which life bases its concept of the universe. Collections of these points of mass are called solar systems. Collections of them are called sectors. Finally, the total collection of explored sectors is called a galaxy.

Life has not been so presumptuous as to begin to name collections of galaxies.

Though everything can be measured, inventions allowing faster than light travel have stolen the awe-inspiring capacity of empty space. The distance between an electron and its nucleus is so enormous when looked at it in scale, that well over 99% of all mass is really just empty space. It is only in the center of a black hole, where a teaspoon of matter has the same mass as a good-sized planet that the idea of density, or lack of it, truly sets in.

The scale holds true when looking at planets. The billions of kilometers between planets of the same system seem small to most hyperdrives, but even the fastest pod racer would take well over three millennia to go from a sun to its furthest orbiting planet.

The space between solar systems is magnified that much more. And like the width of a planet is nothingth of a percentage of its orbiting radius, the width of a galaxy is not even comparable to the distance between it and its nearest neighbor. Of course since life has not yet come up with a name for a collection of galaxies, this line of insanity can not be carried out further. Of course, if you ever do want a quick trip to the loony bin, start to think about how far it might be between any given collection of a collection of a collection of galaxies and its nearest neighbor.

Though infinity does not have an outer edge it does have a center. There are an infinite amount of numbers above zero and an infinite amount below zero. The numeric system can also expand upon itself, for there are an infinite amount of values between zero and one, just as there are an infinite amount of values between the square root of negative one and the square root of negative two. Even amongst this chaotic society of infinitesimally small and infinitely large numbers, zero remains the center of it all. The middle number is one that everyone can agree on, yet is the most confusing of all.

Zero has no value, but it remains the anchor around which the world of finance and commerce, withdrawals and deposits rotates. It is the starting point for all toddlers when they learn to count, and it is the number that stands proud on a clock moments before a race starts. The concept is accepted by all, yet how many really understand what zero is? Is it possible to get from point A to B in zero seconds? Assuming time travel exists, it is possible to get between two points in one second or negative one second, but not zero seconds. If you ever did move through a finite amount of space in zero seconds, you would have transcended time and space, achieving infinity.

Speed is calculated by taking distance divided by time. What is one meter divided by zero seconds? Infinity? Does this mean that the only way one can achieve true knowledge of the center of infinity is to transcend its entire existence first?

The universe too has a center. It is a small rock of a planet, surrounded by a harmless blue mist. If ever an object in the universe was needed to explain the meaning of zero - of nothing - this piece of volcanic rock was that object. Even the smallest asteroid in existence has a trajectory, a temperature, several components of velocity and acceleration, and a very measurable point in space. The center of the universe had none of these things. This was where the universe had been born, and all energy and life had been projected out away from it, leaving a nothing behind.

Darth Sidious looked upon this rock and smiled.

All the knowledge of the Force could not explain the concept of infinity, for even life was its subsidiary. Life, in and of itself, was infinite, growing and expanding from nothing, and complete understanding of it one could never even dream of, yet it was simply a part of an infinite collection of ideas and concepts that made up the whole of the universe.

Even so, Sidious understood enough to know that this rock, no bigger than a small moon, was the key to all power. For him to travel from his existence as a nothing in a nowhere to the one spot in an infinite three-dimensional universe that held the coordinates 0,0,0 would bring him more energy than was calculable. Sidious smiled again. There was a calculation. What was one joule divided by zero?

The Zorian was coming and soon Sidious would be able to bridge the gap between the two zeroes into infinity. As the time approached, the scene did not change. The small rock did not spin or shudder in the slightest. The blue mist about it did not change in density or shift. Even the slightest motion of air did not exist. To thus say that nothing was happening would be a grave misunderstanding. The most powerful force in the universe was invisible. The gravity wells around the rock were growing toward tremendous levels.

Imagine a hole dug straight through the center of a planet so it came out the other side. Now drop a ball down that hole. As it fell it would continue to gain velocity as the gravity increased. It would achieve its maximum velocity as it passed the center of the planet, but would then be falling up. The same gravity that had been accelerating the ball would now be pulling against its motion. The ball would almost reach the lip of the other end of the hole and then fall back towards the center of the planet.

Like a swinging pendulum, the ball would oscillate up and down until the wind resistance finally brought it to a quivering stop at the precise center of the planet's mass. There it would hang as if without gravity, yet in reality would be experiencing more g's than any organism could withstand. It would be experiencing a vortex in space. It would occupy a point in space that all other curvatures led to like the center of a stretched trampoline. A trampoline is a two-dimensional example, but this ball would be experiencing the phenomenon in all three dimensions.

The center of the universe was suspended against space not by the weight of a single planet, but by the whole of the cosmos.

Gravity is not a force. All objects are in motion in space. All objects have a mass, and all mass displaces space. These displacements are warpages. Larger masses warp space to a larger degree. The warping makes straight lines in space bend toward the center of these large masses. When an object is in motion relative to a larger mass, its straight line of motion follows the warped lines of space. It is drawn toward the larger object, not by a force, but by acceleration. Force is equal to mass times acceleration, and it is the combination of an object's mass and its acceleration towards a mass' center that realizes the force.

The acceleration around the center of the universe was growing exponentially as the vast array of galaxies orbited into position around it. Darth Sidious could feel the energy mounting, as the vortex became tangible even outside of the physical realm. Again, it was not a time that the Dark Lord was waiting for; it was a how and a what.

The "what" was the Zorian. The "how" was the tricky part.

The vacuum above the center of the universe was far in excess of what Darth Sidious had imagined it would be, and even though he could sense its amazing presence through the Force, he did not feel even the slightest tug in its direction. There remained a door to be opened - a door for him to step through. The door had a lock. Sidious was patient. He knew the key would present itself - would have no choice but to present itself. The key to the door - to the center of the universe - was inherent in the universe's creation.

Creation implied a Creator. A Creator had existed in the beginning. He had been the Prime Mover and had then locked up the creation so it could function upon its complex laws of physics. The lock belonged to a door. It was a door Sidious was waiting to open.

Through the door there were an infinite number of possibilities and realities. There were vast amounts of life too impossible to explain. There were worlds just beginning to accept life. There were worlds made of solid gold and diamond. In an infinite universe, not only was everything possible, but everything actually had to exist.

Darth Sidious cared about none of these other things. He had his focus on one particular galaxy. More specifically, the former leader of the Empire had his entire being focused on one individual: Alexander Snotzenexer.

Unknown to the self made trillionare; Snotzenexer was just a tool. He was a means to an end. His origins had never been made known to him, and those who had known about his genetic background had died long ago. Snotzenexer had come from a cloning cylinder. It was not right to say that he was a clone, for there existed no one else like him, nor had there been a template from which he was created. Snotzenexer had not been conceived; he had been engineered.

Darth Sidious had begun construction of the Dark Ring long ago with many ambitious plans. While many of those plans were completed, none of them ever achieved what their instigator had intended. After the Emperor had banished Thrawn by sending him on a "scouting trip" into the Unknown regions, he realized that with incredible genius came a slew of other problems. Most insanely intelligent people had social problems. Some suffered from a god-complex. In all situations, it was impossible to get a genius to serve willingly under someone whom he felt was his inferior.

Sidious had solved the problem initially by surrounding himself by idiots. That quickly proved less than successful. Though his officers would willingly obey every one of his orders, they were constantly being out-maneuvered and out-thought by a handful of rebels. Darth Sidious needed a genius military officer that he could control.

Unaware to Snotzenexer, his every intention was constantly being guided and prodded by the long dead Emperor. Without such prodding, the brilliant man might have admitted defeat after the battle in the Danzig system, and his further actions as bank president might really have been as innocent as everyone had thought. Instead, Snotzenexer was unwittingly reassembling an empire so that Sidious might have something to which he could return.

That return was growing very imminent. The hazy outlines of the door began to appear now. Its sketchy perimeter was perfectly spherical. Most doors were two-dimensional, having two sides between which their users transported themselves. This door transported its users between realities and was not concerned with the dimensional aspects of the space being crossed.

The key presented itself, as Darth Sidious knew it would. The key was not a physical object, but a way thinking - a way of perceiving one's surroundings. Darth Sidious perceived himself inside the sphere, and there he was.

As the moment approached, the sphere began to contract. Instead of feeling cramped in the rapidly shrinking power well, the formless entity of the Dark Lord of the Sith felt himself grow in power and awareness. The physical realm was almost attainable now. It was just on the opposite side of infinity, barely out of reach.

As the energy growth fluctuated toward its climax, Darth Sidious could not help but feel like a child reaching toward a ceiling light. It was impossible to reach, but the intense curiosity spawned an unnatural desire for possession. The goal kept moving out of reach, but its movements were much slower now. Slowly the pendulum began to loose its momentum, centering on the only true center in the universe.

It stopped.

It was only the briefest of seconds in the physical realm. It was the moment of total eclipse. It was the moment when all of the heavenly bodies passed exactly through their preordained position, sending the final, searing jolt of gravitational acceleration though the center of the space-time continuum and opening the vortex. The vortex was open for a fraction of a nanosecond, but to Sidiuos it seemed like a millennia.

The Sith Lord reached out for the pendulum. His fingers were slowly grasping the perfectly smooth embodiment of centrality when he felt an intruder. Though he had no physical form, he suddenly felt very crowded inside the volumeless sphere. Someone else was reaching for the pendulum.

Darth Sidious did not know if he should push back this intruder or if he should instead try to be the first to grab the desired object. If he fought off this unknown entity, would he loose his one chance of transportation through the doorway? He could not take that chance. With one final explosion of energy he latched out for the spherical pendulum and was sucked into the vortex. He was followed.

Like two people trying to fit through a turn style at once, it was an incredibly tight fit. They were both the last drops of water in a tub, hovering over the drain momentarily before being spun into the spiraling maelstrom of the energy vacuum. The trip was neither pleasant nor short. Unlike the space it traversed, the doorway and adjoining hallway were finite and not built for two people.

They were spun and tossed about, traveling far faster than the inventor of the concept of speed had ever envisioned in his most delusional fits of drunkenness. Also like two people stuck in a turn style, they were both reluctant to give any ground to let the other through first. The horrendously long journey ended precisely zero seconds after it had started, spewing the two souls onto the rock at the center of the universe.

Upon entry into the physical realm, the two travelers' remembered bodies were returned to them. It happened just as it had at the beginning of time - creation out of nothing. Darth Sidious had left the physical realm as a crinkled old man, too weak to walk without a cane. That was not how he remembered himself; therefore, that was not how he was returned to the physical realm.

The Dark Lord landed on his feet, standing well over two meters and robed in thick, flowing black robes. His hair was jet black, and he had pupilless eyes. His skin was as white as a ghost, and his limbs were thin and emaciated. Without his robes, he would look like an odd stick creature, standing tall on the barren rock.

His lack of physical strength was not an accident. His power came from the Force, an idea he never wanted anyone to forget. Now, standing in the exact center of creation, Darth Sidious could feel the power of the entire universe coursing through his body. The feeling was more exhilarating than he had ever hoped. It was a shame he would have to leave this place to take his spot at the head of an empire that was even now being assembled for him. It would be wasteful to let this power base go to waste with out using it first. It was then that he remembered the soul that had tagged along with him at the last second.

Darth Sidious had awakened to his situation so quickly that the pink form of the person who had followed was still rolling on the rocky surface of the planetoid when the Dark Lord first spotted him. Unlike Sidious, the second person that had bridged the gap between death and life had not been prepared for the arrival. His naked body tumbled over the jagged edges of the volcanic planetoid like an uprooted bush in the wind.

When the motion stopped, Jacen Solo lay still and bleeding. He did not feel any broken bones but was sore beyond imagination. His mind was reeling from its trip through the vortex. He had only barely piggybacked onto the Emperor at the last possible moment. Through the guidance of Obi Wan, Yoda, and his grandfather, Jacen had been able to time his leap just right and was now back in the land of the living. But for how long?

Jacen sensed the other presence as soon as he came to his senses. The Emperor stood several dozen meters away, his tall, dark figure very ominous in the eerie blue light of this world. Darth Sidious did not know who Jacen was, but knew without a doubt that he was a Jedi. Only a Force strong soul could have made the journey through the vortex, and only someone trained in the art of seeing things with the Force would have known where to look.

As Darth Sidious looked at Jacen's shivering naked body, all bloody and bruised, he vividly remembered another young man who had cowered before him. As he searched deeper into Jacen's soul, Sidious saw that the similarity between the two situations went deeper than he had thought. The son of Vader had taught this young man, Sidious realized. He had the same weak, idealistic notions that once clouded Skywalker's vision. If Vader had not been there to intervene, Sidious would have surely defeated young Skywalker, and now, the Dark Lord saw no reason why this young soul would put up any more resistance to destruction.

Jacen watched in mesmerized horror as the cloaked figure raised his arms majestically toward the sky. The surroundings had been immensely placid before, but now things began to change. The wind picked up, and the temperature dropped sharply. The blue mist above began to swirl itself into a miserable black. Patches of lightening began to jump to and fro in the sky above, echoing loud claps of thunder onto the rocky surface below.

The young Jedi was frozen with a mixture of cold, fear, and pain. The summoning of power was so intense Jacen was nearly lulled into a comatose state by its over-whelming presence. It was only his fighter's instincts that told him to move moments before a searing bolt of lightening exploded the rock where he had just been.

Jacen was on his feet now, the trance broken and his wits slowly returning to him. He was naked and badly injured. He had no mental stamina for any type of defense or counter strike, but he had just been given a second chance on a life he had thought was lost forever, and despite the odds against him, he was not going to give up.

Darth Sidious frowned at his miss. Skywalker might have trained this student, he thought, but this one was twice the fighter. The son of Vader would have stood still and died with supposed honor when facing the odds this young Jedi faced. Instead, Jacen looked as nimble as a cat as he jumped from one rocky outcropping to the next, never giving the Dark Lord a chance to hit him.

Lightening required pinpoint accuracy to be effective. There were other ways to bring down an opponent. Jacen leaped a four-meter gap, trying to put more distance between him and his foe. Before the Jedi's foot touched the other side of the crease, a surge of wind carried him backwards, tossing him like a rag doll into a jagged wall. A bolt of pain ripped through his left side when he struck the wall and his left leg crumpled as he slid to the ledge below.

The ledge was narrow, with a three-meter drop to the next level spot. Jacen looked up toward his enemy and felt another energy blast coming. His left arm and leg were numb, but Jacen pushed off with his right side and tumbled off the ledge just as the lightening bolt crashed into the perch.

Jacen fell three meters in an uncoordinated heap, severely twisting his left leg as he hit. The pain rolled over him, making him nauseous. He sensed another energy blast coming and tried to move his torn body, but only collapsed onto his left side. The bolt had not been aimed at him, but at his previous perch above. The combination of energy from this second strike and the one before it, shattered the integrity of the small ledge, and the heavy slab crashed down onto Jacen's upturned right side. The young man's right arm snapped like a twig, giving the gruesome appearance of having two elbows.

It was all Jacen could do to keep from passing out. Some insane desire to live kept him struggling against weight of the rock that lay on top of him. Darth Sidious watched in amusement as his torture victim managed to slide the slab off his torso and onto his leg. The motion tore the skin on his broken right arm, revealing the sickly white bone sticking out at a 45-degree angle. The resulting transfer of weight from his upper body to his right leg immediately popped his right knee out of place.

Jacen's left ankle was already swollen from the sprain he had received when he fell, his right arm looked like it belonged in a horror film, his right leg was bent in the wrong direction at the knee, and his naked body was bleeding profusely. Still, Jacen tried to restore feeling in his good left arm to pull himself away from the cloaked figure that seemed to tower over him from 40 meters away.

Darth Sidious laughed. He cackled and crowed at the tormented sky above, reveling in his unrivaled power. Jacen stopped his struggling. The slab had rolled off his leg, and he could feasibly pull himself along with his left arm, but every centimeter he dragged himself across the sharp rock tore dozens of new cuts into his bare skin. Jacen stopped his struggling and listened to the Emperor laugh.

This man was pure evil. There was no chance of mercy and no chance of survival. Vader had had a thread of good left in him that Luke had been able to use, but there was nothing hidden here. The Emperor was unchanged through death. He was still the arrogant, confident master of evil he had been in his former life.

Jacen did not want to die - again. As he watched the Emperor gather energy for one final blast of destruction, Jacen decided he was going to win.

Like the vortex that had opened before, Darth Sidious stood in the center of the universe and began to create a vacuum of power. The sky boiled above him, lightening bolts streaking in a chaotic tribute to their master below. The wind began to swirl itself around the tall figure draped in black, gathering up the lightening into one swirling mass of energy. The wind noise began to grow into an incredible sucking sound centered on the spot in the sky directly above the Dark Lord. The wind noise reached its tremendous climax, and then there was a sudden silence. The silence lasted for a fraction of a second, and then the energy was released.

Jacen beat Sidious to the punch. Just like before, the Dark Lord of the Sith did all the work, gathering up more power than any living soul should have the right to control, and Jacen snuck in and set it off prematurely. A lightening bolt with enough intensity to light an entire city fell from the sky, consuming Darth Sidious in an explosion that tore a crater in the ground 50 meters wide.

The former emperor had marveled in his own power a bit too much, under-estimating the skill of his opponent when it came to controlling weather. Sidious had gathered the energy in a tight ball and held it above him for a tantalizing second before hurling it at his foe. Jacen had used that second to cut a small hole in the bottom of the ball, bringing the energy crashing down on the Dark Lord's head.

Jacen sat up slowly, gingerly using the Force to pop his right knee back into place. With the threat against him defeated, Jacen took the time to feel the power around him. Unlike his Dark counter part, when Jacen filled himself with the energy of his surroundings, the skies began to clear and the temperature began to climb. The blue mist returned, lit up by thousands of bright stars behind it.

Jacen could feel the swelling go down in his left ankle as the torn ligaments began to mend themselves. Without so much as flinching, Jacen set his right arm, and the healing process began. The tired young man lay down on the rocky ground, which suddenly did not seem so harsh to his soft skin. Jacen put himself into a deep trance with visions of his sister popping into his mind as he closed his eyes.

***

Alexander Snotzenexer sat bolt upright in bed. His wife, Jill Sanson, stirred from sleep at the sudden movement from her husband. Snotzenexer's breaths were coming in short gasps, sweat rolling off his forehead like a waterfall. His heart felt like it was going leap out of his chest and do a little dance at the foot of the bed. The mind of the great thinker was severely scrambled as he tried to sort through the images he had just seen, none of which he could remember.

Sanson watched the odd behavior from her normally placid husband, but felt the question "What's wrong?" too stupid to ask. "Honey," she said slowly, "it was just a dream."

Snotzenexer was not so sure it had been, but the voice of his wife calmed him somewhat. His breathing slowed, and he wiped the sweat from his forehead. He lay back down, staring up at the ceiling, counting his pulse as it too slowly returned to normal.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Sanson asked.

"I can not remember it in the slightest," Snotzenexer replied.

"It scared you worse than I've ever seen anyone scared before." That was saying a lot, for Sanson had thrown her fair share of officers out of airlocks in her tenure as an Imperial Captain, and now Admiral. The look on a man's face as the timer reached zero and the airlock doors opened behind him, was enough to keep any kid up at night for weeks.

The couple was silent for the next hour, lying and staring at the ceiling, both too disturbed to sleep. Snotzenexer finally broke the silence.

"What are we doing this for?"

"What are we doing what for?" Sanson asked for clarification.

"This," Snotzenexer said, waiving his arms about the room as he lay on his back, "everything. Why did we gain control of the entire universe?"

Sanson was silent. To her, an Imperial military commander through and through, the answer seemed obvious. They had been at war with the Republic for the past three decades. In war, you fight the other side until you lost or won. They had won. Still, she knew her husband did not ask stupid questions just to hear the sound of his voice.

"What will we gain by turning the galaxy back into a dictatorship? We have all the power, money, and respect we could ever hope for right now. If we changed the system back to the way Palpatine ran it, we might keep our money and power, but we would loose the respect. With respect comes comfort."

Sanson rubbed her slightly swollen stomach. She knew her husband was right, when the public no longer respected you, rebel factions were created everywhere, making every waking moment a struggle to survive.

"We're about to become parents. We've served the Empire for over half our lives. We have together achieved more than the greatest military and political leaders in history. Do not you think it's time to just stop?"

"You want to stop where you are and continue to be the President of the Republic as opposed to the Emperor of the New Imperial Realm?"

"That does have a nice ring to it," Snotzenexer admitted, turning from his back to look at his wife. "And I still have all confidence that we could achieve it, it's just I don't think it will be worth it. Eight months from now we will exist in a state of constant war and chaos. Right now we are living in the lap of luxury, and I don't see the need to change anymore."

Sanson really could not argue with the logic. She still had dreams of being the strongest military leader in history, controlling a fleet capable of crushing anything in sight, but Snotzenexer's concerns had their own value too. She would be a mother in about six more months and she was not sure yet how she would feel about that. Eight months from now she might not want to spend every waking hour at war.

The decision to put the brakes on had to be made now. If they continued down their preplanned course for much longer, they would not have the ability to turn back. "Can we stop now?"

Snotzenexer was wondering the same thing. They had left a trail when they had risen to power. It was a trail that would not be easy to follow, and very hard to prove, but it was there. Snotzenexer had figured that by the time the few remnants of the old ruling body had dug up enough evidence to convict him of the crimes of which he was guilty, it would be too late. If they decided to stop now, though, he would be very vulnerable if those charges were made public.

"We won't stop entirely," Snotzenexer said. "There are many loose strings that need to be tied."

Sanson knew that he was talking about the Solos and their friends. "What about the military?"

Right now, Sanson was the highest-ranking officer in the Republic Navy, but she was not running it like an Admiral. There were several Republic captains who commanded with her. It was a system of checks and balances to make sure no one would ever achieve a dictatorship.

"We will need to continue with our plans regarding the military. If something should arise, we will need a safety net to fall into. Yes, continue your takeover, though do not go any further than gaining complete control. Once you have it, do not rearrange it like we had planned."

"Some of the men will not be happy. They talk of you as if you were a god. They can't wait until they are members of the Imperial Navy again."

"I'm worth several trillion," Snotzenexer replied. "If we need to, we can give the disgruntled officers $100 million and shove them off to a backwards world where they can be their own dictator. Those who do not want the money, throw out of an airlock."

"Is all this from the dream," Sanson asked after several minutes of silence.

"I think so," Snotzenexer replied slowly. "I don't know what I saw, but whatever had been pushing me to recreate the Empire died. Maybe I had a flash vision of what the future might be if I continued. I'm not really sure."

Sanson grinned. "You better not be telling me that you're attaining a Force sensibility."

Snotzenexer chuckled a little to himself. He rolled over and cuddled his wife. "Trust me dear, never that. I'd sooner have the our child be a girl than for me to become Force sensitive."

"Oh," Sanson started sarcastically, "I'm so moved."

The two continued small talk, eventually drifting off into a very peaceful sleep.

***

Jaina sat back from the Scavenger's controls as the ship was now hurtling through hyperspace. The nav com had not accepted - could not accept - the coordinates she needed to enter. Her destination was far outside of explored space. At normal hyperspace speed, she would reach her destination in a little over ten thousand years. As it was, it would take her over three months in hyperspace, and Jaina feared something might go terribly wrong.

Anakin had helped Jaina check out the entire ship in a more thorough inspection than they had done when they had first tested the homemade ship. Both of the two helpers had wanted to come with her, but Jaina had denied their requests without relenting. This was a mission for her to complete.

She had woken up in incredible shock two days ago. Before that she had been in a very unusual coma for over a month. She had seen her brother die, cut in half by Eran, a young man the twins had been chasing for suspected arson. After talking with her father, Jaina realized that the young man was probably guilty of everything Jacen had accused him of, but Han had also said that the arsonist had tried to help. He had brought Jaina's body back and had expressed concern about Snotzenexer's rise to power and that he wanted to fight against it.

Any guilt for Jacen's death fell directly on Jacen's own head, despite the fact that Eran had been the one swinging the lightsaber. Jacen was the one who had initiated the battle, forcing fate to pick someone to die. From what Han had said, Eran too was dead, killed by Trince Allister, an enraged Jedi who had then gone after Snotzenexer and met his end.

Jaina felt a little twinge of regret at the news of Eran's death, hoping against hope that the young man might have survived his flight off the building, but he was most likely dead. Jaina remembered their first meeting. Eran was a good man. He had been caught up in something he did not understand and been hired for a job without being given all the information.

All that was behind her now. Jaina had woken two days ago with one realization. Jacen was alive. The Zorian, a word Jaina had never heard of before, had come and with it Jacen had returned to the physical plane. Mara had woken too, declaring that the Emperor had returned also. This revelation lasted briefly. Mara was shocked again moments later with the sudden disappearance of her former master. Jaina feared that Jacen had also left, but his presence remained in the back of her mind, just in reach.

Neither Jaina nor Mara could understand what had happened. Apparently, the Zorian brought Jedi back from the dead. Why Palpatine and Jacen had been chosen, or why they had managed to bridge the gap, neither could tell. As for Palpatine's sudden disappearance, the two women could only hope that Jacen had won the ensuing battle, no matter how ridiculous that sounded.

Now Jaina was preparing to go back into a coma. This time she would not be rejecting the fact that her brother was gone, but trying desperately to accept that he was back. Jacen had spoken through her dreams saying he could set up a tether to bring the Scavenger toward him much faster than the hyperdrive was capable. The acceleration of her ship would be exponential, growing greater as she neared her brother. For some reason, Jacen claimed to have all the power in the universe at his disposal and felt very confident in his ability to bridge the vast gap between them.

Jacen had just risen from the dead in a very dramatic fashion and Jaina did not feel like arguing with him. She lay down in her cot on the Scavenger and slowly dropped her consciousness into a deep trance, focused on her brother's beacon in the back of her mind. She suddenly fell into a complete trance of utter calm and peace, feeling, and literally being, drawn to her brother's location so very distant from her own.

Outside, the stars began to change from streaks to lines and then to nothing at all as the Scavenger achieved speeds that surpassed even the concept of light.

Three months later . . .

Jaina moved the Scavenger toward the blue mist carefully. Jacen was in her head telling her that there was nothing to worry about, but Jaina could feel a very unusual sensation emanating from the rocky moon below. Jacen had not tried to explain to his sister what this place was, and even after spending three long months in the center of the universe, Jacen was not so sure he really knew what it was either.

Jaina brought the ship down through the mist, waiting for a sign that she was entering some kind of atmosphere. Her sensors were less than helpful, though, reading that outside her ship was nothing. It did not say there was a vacuum, but it did not say there was air either. There was no temperature reading and no type of wind at all. Jaina could not pick up any type of moisture and could sense no type of life save for her brother.

Jaina set the ship down gently on a flat spot on the rock and felt the ship relax onto its pillons. Apparently there was gravity. She hesitated before opening the hatch to the outside. What if Jacen was still encapsulated in some rejuvenating Force bubble and did not know that there was no air around him. Jaina shook her fears aside. Her brother sounded very confident that all was safe and Jaina trusted him.

She opened the hatch and tensed as she expected a gust of air to either enter or exit her ship. Neither happened. Jaina walked very slowly down the ramp to the surface of the very alien planet. The blue mist above gave a very unnatural look to the place. Unlike most rocky landscapes, there was no loose gravel to be seen. The planet was one big rock. There were towering spires and deep crevices covering the hostile landscape. Jaina finally saw Jacen and her jaw dropped.

Jacen was naked, and his body was a work of art. The fact he was her brother saved her from sexual fantasies, but she still could not help but stare. His body was sculpted as if a master craftsman had spent a lifetime to create the most perfect form imaginable. Muscles rippled around every joint as he walked, yet he was not grotesquely huge. Still, she could imagine that very few Gamorians could out wrestle the man walking toward her. His skin was perfectly tan, as if that were his natural color. His brown hair hung as neat as possible, which was a thousand times better than Jaina had ever seen it before. His eyes were clear and pure, and his face chiseled from stone, with no hint of a beard or any imperfection.

Jacen had always been a great warrior, but as he walked calmly toward his sister with no hint of embarrassment, he seemed more alert and alive than she had ever seen him. He seemed ready to break out into a dance, yet at the same time, ready to repel any attack from any direction with the greatest of ease. Jaina could feel a clarity of mind that was so pure and focused she had a hard time believing this was her brother.

Jacen neared, and suddenly Jaina felt very uncomfortable. She hesitated as he walked up to her and was very reluctant as he grabbed her in a strong hug. She was again amazed at his strength and sculpted form. Jacen noticed her discomfort for the first time and broke the hug.

"Thank-you for coming," Jacen said, his voice sounding as clear as a bell.

"Of course I came for you," Jaina said as if she had no other choice. "As you would have come for me if the distance had been twice as far."

The two stood looking at each other for a while, Jaina glad that at the close distance, she was able to keep her eyes above Jacen's shoulders. "No use hanging around here," Jaina said finally, though she wished she could find out more about this place. There would be time for questions later. "Let's go inside."

Jaina turned around and walked back up the ramp into the ship. She made her way quickly to the cockpit and began to prepare for take-off. Jacen joined her after having first made a stop at his personal quarters, throwing on a shirt and a pair of pants.

"Will the trip back be just as long?" Jaina asked.

"Longer," Jacen responded. "I will be able to use this place as an energy well, but as we grow distant from it, my ability to tap into its resources will grow weaker. Still, it should take us no longer than four months to get back, and maybe not that long."

"What is this place?" Jaina asked as the Scavenger broke away from the center of the universe and moved onto a trajectory with home.

"That is an interesting question," Jacen responded, trying to figure out if he knew the answer.

The Scavenger leaped into hyperspace and the two twins talked for over two days before settling into comfortable trances for the remainder of the trip home.

Three months later . . .

Chapter 1 "If You Can't Beat 'Em . . ."

President Snotzenexer paced uneasily in the small room. "It should be over by now. What's taking so long?"

"Sir, please," the woman said trying to calm him, though she had been unsuccessful in every attempt thus far. "Nothing unusual is happening. It's not unheard of for it to take twice this long. I assure you that nothing is wrong and we have our best people working on it."

"I should be there, then," Snotzenexer tried to reason with the woman.

"We've tried that too. You just weren't helping at all. We've done this a thousand times. Just trust us."

"I can't trust what I don't control!" Snotzenexer screamed. He quickly realized what he had just said, and calmed somewhat. "I mean," he said more quietly, taking a seat, "I have to see what's going on. I need to have all the information."

"I understand, sir. Your record thus far confirms that you always have the answers, but you're just going to have to let us handle this one."

"What about Jill, my wife? What does she think?"

"She agrees with us one-hundred percent. Do not you remember what she said?"

"'They can handle it.' Yes I remember, but maybe she's changed her mind. If I went to go talk to her maybe I could-"

The woman felt like she was dealing with a 4-year-old instead of the most powerful man in the universe. "Sir, just relax. It'll be over any second now."

Right then the double doors into the small room slid open and a man in a white coat walked up to Snotzenexer. The President of the Republic sprang to his feet in eager expectation. "Congratulations, President. It's over and everything went smoothly."

The look in Snotzenexer's eyes was like that of a kid eyeing up a pile of presents at his own birthday party. "You are the proud father of a handsome, baby boy."

Snotzenexer could not take it any longer. "You may go in and see your-" but Snotzenexer was already past the doctor. He ran down the short hallway past the double doors, made a sharp left, and followed the baby cries down to the end of the next hallway. The new father burst through the doors so fast he nearly sent one of the nurses flying.

Jill Sanson did not seem surprised at her husband's abrupt arrival at all. "There he is," she said in a very childish voice, holding the baby up so he could see his father. "There's daddy. Don't be scared. He's not nearly as strange as he looks. One day you're going to grow up to be just like him. I will be so proud of you, my little wubby dubby."

Sanson's odd behavior scared Snotzenexer back to reality. He suddenly realized how peculiar he had been acting. He turned to the nurse he had nearly killed on his arrival. "I'm sorry. I am just a little excited, is all. Thank-you very much for taking care of," he gestured to the baby and his wife in the bed, "this. I'm sorry I could not have been more helpful."

Despite his wish to not act strange, Snotzenexer's words nearly made the nurses in the room laugh. "You did just fine, sir. You had the hardest job of all of us. You had to wait while your son was being born."

The doctor walked in behind the president holding his data board. "Have you picked a name yet?"

Snotzenexer looked at his wife who was still talking in a child's language with their new son. They had decided he could name the boys and she would name the girls. It was odd, Snotzenexer routinely made split second decisions involving billions of credits or thousands of lives, but here was a rather easy task and he had thought of it for the past four months with little head way. "His name is," Snotzenexer mentally flipped a coin, "David Alexander Snotzenexer."

***

"You've got to be kidding."

Han sighed. He figured this was not going to be as easy as he would have liked.

"You're Han Solo, right?"

Han nodded mutely.

"You're here to pick up this shipment for Welfan 6, right?"

Again Han nodded.

"Is this some kind of joke?"

Han wished it was. It had been a very slow six months. Snotzenexer had an unyielding hold on the galaxy's proceedings, and despite Mara, Han, and Thomas' examinations, there seemed to be nothing they could do about it from the outside. This meant they needed to be on the inside. The old phrase rang true: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

"I'm sorry, sir, but this is not a joke. I am a pilot in the Trade Federation, and I'm here to pick up the shipment of lateral stabilizers for Welfan 6."

The depot chief shook his head and muttered under his breath just loud enough for Han to hear. "Oh, how the mighty have fallen."

Han wanted to let the comment pass, but Mara and Thomas insisted that he try to be as disgruntled as possible. "Hey, I have a family to support and I need money just like the rest of the population of this forsaken galaxy. It just so happens that my financial future was tied directly to that of the Republic. So maybe we can just cut the wise cracks and start filling out this datapadwork."

The chief suppressed his mirth as much as he could. Like most of the rest of the galaxy, he was beginning to see that the former heads of the government had been ill equipped for the job and had tried to hold everything together using the same tactics they had used to keep the rebellion of 30 years ago together. A government was a much more complex thing than an organized resistance, and Snotzenexer was a far better leader.

"I'd be glad to get things started . . . Han." Han could tell the man took great pleasure in addressing him by his first name. A year ago, this lowly depot chief would not have dared address Han by anything other than General Solo, despite his retired status. "But I need a few signatures from your TFR. Things are a little different now. We're more organized."

This guy couldn't help but rub it in, Han thought. "I'm supposed to meet him here. This is my first scheduled pick-up, and I did not have a chance to rendez-vous with the Trade Federation Representative yet."

"It says here his name is Delan Foolery," the chief said, looking down at his data board.

"That's Delan Fowlry," a female voice corrected the pronunciation, "and you got the pronoun wrong also."

Both men turned suddenly and saw a highly attractive female walking toward them from behind a stack of crates. She stood half a head shorter than Han, wearing the official attire of the Trade Federation. The outfit consisted of a gray military vest over a long-sleeved, colored, knit shirt - in this case, navy blue - and gray military pants that matched the vest, both of which were ordained with the Trade Federation logo. The logo was a "T" intersected halfway up the "F," each letter a different color - again the "T" was navy blue, while the "F" was black.

Han had seen the uniform before, often with several other color combinations, but he had never thought it very flattering until he saw it on Delan. The knit shirt under the vest was stretched to its limit over her bust line, while the normally loose fitting pants followed her legs perfectly has she flexed them through her gate. Her long brown hair bounced lightly on her shoulders, shrouding a round face set by two sparkling brown eyes.

It was with all his willpower that Han returned his gaze to the chief. The other man had not yet obtained such willpower. He had planned to use an assortment of further insults to degrade Han's new position but decided against it, suddenly feeling jealous of the former general's station.

"I think we can stop the adolescent drooling and get on with business, don't you agree, Chief Brony?"

It was Han's turn for a chuckle, but the look Delan immediately leveled at him told Han she though him just as guilty. "Uh, right," Brony muttered through his red face. "I just need both of your signatures on this pick-up form, declaring that you both willingly take this cargo into your possession and are now fully responsible for it until delivery. And Ms. Fowlry, I need your signature on this form approving the purchase price of the shipment."

"It's Miss, by the way," she said, as she sauntered over to the chief. She took the scribe in her hand and began to sign her name. Before she even made a mark, she paused dramatically.

"It's all in order," Brony said quickly, mistaking her pause for an examination of the document on which she was about to put her name and Trade Federation approval. "You can read it if you like, but I've worked with the Trade Federation before, and I can assure you I know the proper proceedings."

Delan made a slight facial twitch that seemed excruciatingly familiar to Han and nodded her head. "Yes, it appears in order. Like Solo, here, this is my first assignment, and I just want to make sure." With more confidence now, Delan scribed her name on each of the documents and handed them back to Brony.

The representative turned away from the two men. "I assume this is our cargo," she gestured to a dozen two-ton crates."

"Yes, that's it," Brony said quickly, rushing over to the cargo. "As you can see the stabilizers are packaged four to a crate and are reinforced with Federation approved fo-"

"I hope not all of your loader operators are on break. We are scheduled to leave within the hour. I do not want to be delayed." With that, Delan turned her heel and walked out of the cargo shed toward the loading platform where the Millennium Falcon sat with Chewie on guard.

"It looks like you've got your hands full, General," Brony said quietly when it looked like Delan was out of range.

The fiery rep turned around sharply. "Not half as full as yours will be if you do not get THAT cargo on THAT ship in under fifteen minutes."

Brony nearly bit is own tongue off, as he nodded furiously and hurried to find one of his lazy dock boys. Han watched the chief go and then made his way over to the stationary rep. "Luke?" Han asked, gazing at Delan's figure. "Is that you?" Han sincerely hoped he was wrong.

"Am I over-doing it?" Delan responded, her voice suddenly lower and sounding very much like the Jedi Master's.

Han blew a sigh of relief. "When you called and told me you succeeded in becoming my rep and were going to show up incognito, this is not exactly what I was expecting."

"So you think I AM over-doing it?"

"The act - no." Han looked over his shoulder and saw the chief talking hurriedly to a young loader operator in the far corner of the cargo shed. "The act is great. But the look . . . well . . . it's very . . . well it's . . . you know . . . it's hard to remember that you're my brother-in-law."

Luke grinned with his female face. "Do I remind you of anyone?" Luke struck a pose.

Han wanted very desperately to not look at him, but something about Luke's appearance suddenly struck him. "Yes," he said slowly, "you do."

"Leia?" Luke asked.

Han nodded.

"Good, then it's working."

"You look like Leia only you're more," Han held his hands in front of his own chest, slightly cupped, "and," Han's hands were at a loss as to how he could illustrate Luke's fake figure using his own body, "younger," he finally settled with.

Luke laughed at his friend's uncomfortable situation. "I picked an attractive persona, but there is something subtly different about everyone that makes them ten times more attractive to a certain member of the opposite sex. Whether it's the specific location of a freckle, or just the shape of their ears, there is something that makes humans single out one person in their hunt for the most attractive partner. Since I'm fooling around with everyone's mind to project this image anyway, I just went one step further to find that one attribute which will make me that much more irresistible."

"Hence you look a little like everyone's dream woman. Which explains why you slightly resemble Leia to me."

"Something like that."

"Are you trying to tell me that you want men to find you irresistible?"

"I want people think of me as feminine as possible to decrease the chance that anyone will ever guess who I really am."

"This trick of yours, does it mean the chief and I are seeing two entirely different women when we look at you?"

"No, the difference is so subtle that even the best sketch artist wouldn't be able to pick it out if you both were to try and describe me later. It's just a little extra edge."

"When you paused before signing your name," Han started to ask a question, but Luke picked up on it.

"Yeah, I almost signed 'Luke Skywalker.' I just need to be more careful."

Han heard the noise of a loader from behind him and he and Luke moved out of the way as the driver nearly ran them over on his way to the Falcon. Han and Luke walked quickly after the loader, wanting to completely traverse the narrow, elevated walkway between the cargo shed and the landing pad before the loader made its return trip.

The driver allowed the two men to place themselves out of his way before making a mad dash back to the shed for the next crate. Chewie walked up to Han and Luke, suspiciously eyeing Han's young, female friend. He barked curiously at Han.

"Yes, Chewie, this is Luke." Some more barking. "I don't care if you don't believe it, it's true."

"It's me, Chewie," Luke said in his normal voice. The Wookiee's ears picked up at the familiar sound, but he shook his head and made a final statement that he'd believe it when he saw Luke drop the disguise. "Not until we're safely inside the ship, Chewie."

Chewie bowed partway and gestured with his arm toward the Falcon's ramp. "Okay, we can go inside."

From a distance, Chief Brony saw the Wookiee's gesture and laughed to himself. "She's already gotten onto the sarcastic side of Chewbacca." The strength and prowess of the famous general's copilot was legendary. "She'll be short a pair of arms before they get to Welfan 6."

Inside the Falcon, Luke had dropped his disguise and was lounging in one of Han's chairs. "So how did you manage to convince old Snoty to make you my rep?" Han asked, taking a seat across from Luke, both of them waiting for the signal so they could take off.

"I never had to speak to him, and I'm glad. He's got a Twi'lek named Cog Fardin running the Trade Federation - at least on the outside. Snotzenexer can only control so much by himself. Pretty soon, as everything gets too big, he'll have to turn it over to someone else. That is to our advantage. Anyway, in my meeting with Cog Fardin, I was very convincing that I should be assigned to you. Jedi Masters have a way of being rather persuasive."

Han laughed, "I bet they do."

A few more minutes passed and they were given the word by the air control that they were loaded and ready to go. "And so starts my life as a Federation Trader," Han said melodramatically as he raised the Falcon gently off the landing pad.

After they were out of the atmosphere and into hyperspace, Han turned to look at Luke. "I noticed you did not bring any luggage with you."

"I never carry any anywhere else I go."

"Yes, but you are normally not masquerading as a woman. I've never known a woman that did not have at least two suitcases packed with clothes and accessories."

"What do I need clothes for?" Luke asked. To support his claim, Han watched as the color of Luke's clothes cycled through a variety of different color combinations.

Han closed his eyes tight and shook his head. "Don't do that!" Han calmed as Luke returned his attire to reality. "You still need to pretend for everyone else. Besides, I refuse to fly with you if you never plan on changing clothes."

"How do you know that I'm wearing any clothes at all?"

Chewie made a sudden bark of disapproval. "Ditto, buddy. I hate Jedi too."

***

"Hello?"

"Yes."

"Yes, is this Borrel Curtis?"

Borrel sat back in his chair away from the com unit. "Yes, this is Borrel Curtis," he said loud enough for the speaker to pick up his voice.

"Borrel Curtis the director?"

"Yes," Borrel said, growing tired of this game, "Borrel Curtis the director. What can I do for you?"

"This is Cayron Moall."

Borrel knew the name. Cayron was the top producer employed by the TBC, Torenick Broadcasting Company, and the company he presently worked for. Cayron Moall had hated PEN, Porylen Entertainment Network, and Borrel's former company. Cayron and been ecstatic when a terrorist explosion had destroyed the main headquarters of PEN, wiping out all of the company's top officials and removing the network from existence. Without the competition, TBC had become the sole source for decent holo-programming in the entire sector, a sector that contained the Varion system.

Cayron had been less than enthusiastic when Borrel had come to work for his company. Borrel had been one of the head production managers at PEN, but now that he was just a two-credit producer for TBC, any animosity Cayron might have had for Borrel disappeared when he got to see his former competitor take a humbling job at about one quarter his former salary.

"Hi Cayron, what can I do for you today?" Borrel was taking a long weekend off. He was just wrapping up a movie and the editing sessions were torture. He'd already had to reshoot two scenes he thought he had finished. The props for the two scenes had been destroyed in later scenes, and new ones had to be made. This not only increased his costs, but the replacement props did not match the originals, and his holo editors were having a terrible time rectifying the problem.

"I am working on the Documentary and was wondering if you could help me."

The Snotzenexer Documentary. Of course Borrel had heard of it. It's all TBC was talking about. Borrel had had the most difficult time trying to get any additional money to finish his picture because all the funds were going into the Documentary. No one even bothered calling it the Snotzenexer Documentary anymore. It was just THE Documentary. They had even asked him if he would co-direct it. He had turned them down.

Borrel hated Snotzenexer. He could not stand anyone who profited off his loss. Snotzenexer had cashed in on PEN, selling all his stock in the company literally hours before the terrorist attack occurred. Then there had been the two Jedi instances about a month apart. Two separate times Jedi attacked the Republic President. Borrel idolized the Jedi. His movie was the fourth in the Jedi Chronicles, "Blade of Destiny." If the Jedi did not like Snotzenexer, then neither did Borrel.

"What do you want me to do? I'm busy with my own project."

"Ah, 'Blades of Destitution,' isn't it?"

"'Destiny,'" Borrel corrected. "Yes, and I'm very busy. I don't think I have any time for the Documentary."

"I wasn't going to ask you for time. I was actually looking for some footage. I understand that you got some excellent asteroid footage for a scene in your movie. I was wondering if you couldn't give me about two or three minutes that you don't plan to use."

Borrel was very proud of the footage they had gotten and would hit himself in the face with a rusty pole before he gave it to Cayron. He was about to say as much when he realized whom he was talking to. Cayron was no longer a competitor, and while he was not directly over Borrel, he was definitely above him. If Borrel did not give him the footage, Cayron would easily get it from someone else on the project, only then it would be far more work for both of them.

The footage in question was taken with a probe. Ten probes had originally been used, only one had survived. The probes had been sent into the Varion asteroid field under remote control and then accelerated through the asteroids. A very skilled controller was used for the probes, but it took him ten tries before he was able to safely navigate the probe through the rocks for long enough to get the footage they needed.

The scene involved the daring Jedi pilot diving into the asteroid field to escape his pursuers. The probe gave very good first person footage. Several times asteroids twirled out of the way just in time, and on a three-dimensional holo-screen, it was very breath taking.

All previous directors who had tried to get similar footage had used props or digitized asteroids, but they did not look as real as what Borrel had captured. Another method had been to place a camera in a stationary position and let the asteroids float past it. Then after the footage was taken, you could speed it up, giving the illusion of fast travel through the field. The only way to speed up the footage was to remove half or three fourths of the frames, giving the final scene a very choppy look.

"What do you need the asteroid footage for?" Borrel asked.

"For the Documentary," Cayron responded obviously. When Borrel did not honor the statement with a response, Cayron continued. "We're covering the tragedy in the Denorid system, and we want some really dramatic footage. Do you know the odds of that accident ever happening again? I mean it's like ten trillion to one. It's almost as if someone aimed those asteroids at the planets. It's just amazing."

Borrel looked at his chrono. He had just eaten and had about four hours before his next scheduled event. "Do you have some time now?"

"Yeah, I got a couple hours."

"I'll meet you at recording studio eight in half an hour, okay," Borrel said. Might as well get this over with now.

Twenty-five minutes later both men were sitting in front of a holo-viewer with a stack of film cards beside them. "We got bits and pieces of footage from all ten probes that we sent in, but for the film we needed footage both entering the asteroid field and exiting the field. Almost all of our footage came from the tenth probe. You might think that we could cut from one probe to the other in between shots and no one would notice, but the viewer finds the scene more believable when a rock in the distance in one shot, reappears in the next shot.

"This means that we have a whole bunch of footage from the other nine probes before they exploded. The longest continuous shot we got out of them was two minutes and seventeen seconds."

"Let's see it," Cayron said. "We're looking for about five minutes total, but we can break away from the shot several times to show the damage on the planets."

Borrel sighed. Over the com he had asked for about two or three minutes of film. Now he wanted five. The experienced director had no doubt that Cayron would likely walk away from this session with close to ten minutes. Borrel popped the film card into the viewer and moments later the pair was flying through the Varion asteroid field.

Cayron was so enthralled with the images that he actually started to dodge the rocks as they came hurtling toward him. The producer had forgotten to watch the timer and literally jumped out of his seat when the two minutes, seventeen seconds were up. An unseen asteroid spun into view out of nowhere and ended the video.

"That was amazing," Cayron said, slightly breathless.

Despite his immense dislike of the man, Borrel could not help but be pleased with his reaction. "That was nothing. The footage we have for the actual film is twice that long."

"No," Cayron tried to clarify, "I mean the end. It was so sudden, so dramatic."

"Yeah, we used a lot of the better endings for the unfortunate pilots who chased our character into the field."

"They would be great for scene changes in the documentary. Get the audience to jump out of their seat, then immediately hit them with scenes of destruction from the planet while they're vulnerable. As soon as they've seen enough, plunge 'em back into the asteroids. After another sudden ending, hit 'em with even more disturbing images of the destruction.

"By the end of the scene, they'll be so mad at the injustice of the galaxy that they'll be ready to hop on the nearest transport to the Denorid system to help in the effort themselves. That's when we tell them what the president is doing to help save millions. This will be great."

"Glad I could help," Borrel said sarcastically, though the tone of voice was lost on Cayron.

"Let me see more."

"Here's our next longest clip," Borrel said as he put the card in. The action on this clip was so fast that Cayron asked Borrel to slow it down. While Cayron was focusing on the action right in front of the probe, Borrel's gaze started to wander to the outer limits of the probe's view.

Borrel had seen this particular filmcard several times. They had used it extensively for one of the enemy fighters. Off in the corner of the image Borrel began to watch the distant spinning asteroids. One rock in particular caught his attention. It was not spinning like the rest of the asteroids. It had a very distinctive lump on one side that never rotated out of view. It almost looked like the asteroid was being controlled by some sort of tractor beam.

As soon as that idea crossed his mind, the asteroid disappeared. "What?!" Cayron was so mesmerized by the action of the asteroids that he nearly fell out of his seat at the outburst. "Rewind that." Borrel was the one controlling the holo-player so the statement was unnecessary. He rolled the image back several dozen frames and watched again in supper slow motion as the rock disappeared.

It was not like what you would see when a rock slipped behind a nebula, instead, there was a very sharp edge that moved across the rock as it disappeared. Besides, there was no nebula to speak of. Watching the disappearing act one more time, Borrel was convinced the asteroid was disappearing behind something unnatural or man made.

"What are you doing?" Cayron finally asked. "I do not have time for this. I need footage of fast moving asteroids flying at the camera, not disappearing ones off in the distance. If you want to examine them, do it on your own time."

This IS my time, Borrel thought, but kept his mouth shut. He was going to look at this footage again.

Two hours later, Borrel was by himself and had gone through the rest of his footage, finding two other instances of asteroid disappearances. An idea was slowly forming in his head, but it was so preposterous, so absolutely hideous, that he did not want to believe it possible. The only problem was that the line of questions only led in one direction.

Borrel was thoroughly convinced that the asteroids were disappearing behind something man made. There was only one thing that fit the description: a cloaked ship.

Borrel had not been the director of the film at the time the footage was taken. He had been off somewhere overseeing the shooting of a documentary about a famine in a neighboring system. Regardless of the fact he had not been part of the filming, he knew the time period well. It was right around the time when the terrorist attack had happened. The time after the terrorist attack was mostly filled with news of Snotzenexer's rise to power, but mixed in, was TBC's purchase of all PEN's "works in progress." One of those works was "Blade of Destiny." Borrel had swallowed his pride and taken the job as director since the former director had died in the terrorist attack.

Borrel knew that time frame well and could only think of one thing that could be hiding in the asteroid field: Admiral Sanson's fleet. It was common knowledge that the Imperials had the ability to cloak large vessels, it just had not been made known that Sanson's defected fleet had that capability.

None of this was shocking; in fact, none of it was even news. Sanson had already told the galaxy that she had been hiding in the asteroid field for some time, scared to come out. The problem here was that the asteroids were disappearing and not reappearing. A cloaked vessel was designed to be transparent. All space debris should remain visible even if it passes behind a cloaked vessel. It is possible for an asteroid to venture too close to a cloaked vessel and fall into the cloaking shield. After all, a cloaking shield was spherical while a Star Destroyer was triangular. There was an awful lot of free space in which an asteroid could disappear. If this were the case, the asteroids should disappear for a short while, and then reappear after they had passed through the cloaking shield. This was not happening.

This Star Destroyer, no matter how ludicrous it sounded, was collecting asteroids. The next question was "Why?" Borrel figured he could call up the Republic military and ask them. Admiral Sanson was now the head of the military, and she had been very open about her past so far. The media had drilled her time and time again about her past, and she had always responded with answers. Borrel did not think he would get a straight answer to this question.

Under normal circumstances, Borrel would think that the idea of a Star Destroyer collecting asteroids was so absurd that he must be mistaken. Not now. Not so soon after hearing Cayron Moall say the words "It's almost as if someone aimed those asteroids at the planets."

No matter how obscene the idea was, Borrel could not get the possibility out of his mind. It would take an enormous ship to hold all the asteroids that were responsible for the destruction in the Denorid system. Admiral Sanson had a Super Star Destroyer at her disposal.

The biggest thing keeping Borrel from doing anything about this was his hatred for Snotzenexer. On the outset, it looked like that should be his prime motivator, but Borrel was neither foolish nor rash. He knew his bias against the Republic President might be clouding his judgment to such an extent that he was jumping to conclusions. It was almost as if his subconscious wanted Snotzenexer to be guilty of mass murder.

It was not like there was no motive for the act. The Denorid disaster had cost former President Organa-Solo her position. A position that was quickly usurped by Snotzenexer. Granted Snotzenexer was the chosen replacement because of his financial prowess at a time of economic chaos. The chaos had started because of another natural disaster that Snotzenexer could not have possibly had a hand in. Or could he?

If Borrel was going to assume that Snotzenexer had already killed billions, what's another couple thousand? This would mean that he would have had to know what kind of situation the Republic had been in financially. That was too much to assume, as even the heads of the government had not known until days before the incident.

Regardless of Snotzenexer's other assumed atrocities, the evidence against him and his wife (the two had been officially married four months ago) was right in front of him. He briefly thought about taking the asteroid footage to his bosses, but he could imagine what their response would be. He had a good guess because he used to hold their positions, and he knew what he would do if a PEN director had brought him this footage.

The response would be something like this: "You have three instances of disappearing asteroids from seven months ago, and you want use them to accuse the most powerful and popular man in the universe of mass murder. Not only would you be accusing him of murdering billions of innocent people, but they are the same people that he is now spending millions of credits to save."

That response would be totally valid, yet at the same time, he could not just ignore what he had. There was probably one person who he could talk with that might be able to lend him a listening ear. He just did not know if he would be able to track down the former president of the Republic.

***

Leia followed the Jedi student through the halls of the Academy dormitory. Even after months of labor, there was still only one livable dormitory on the jungle moon. The first dormitory had been built quickly by eager students. The second one was taking forever. Coruscant was no longer giving any financial support to the Academy, and the flood of donations from construction yards immediately after the assault on the moon some eight months ago now had slowed to less than a trickle.

The student had told Leia that there was someone trying to reach her by holocom. Transmissions by holocom were very expensive and rarely unimportant. Because both parties could see each other, there was little room for trickery, and at a time like this, Leia had no more patients for prank calls. No prank would use the holocom.

Leia sat herself down in front of the holo-viewer and transferred the call in. A man's face appeared on the screen. He looked to be about Han's age, with a little more gray in his hair than her husband, but the same determined features. "What can I do for you?"

"My name Borrel Curtis. You may call me Borrel. I am a film director for the TBC. I have some very unique information, and I was hoping you could help me."

"What does this information concern?"

"It concerns the disaster in the Denorid system and possibly a responsible party."

"Hold it right there, Borrel!" Leia was suddenly excited. "Is your transmission secure?"

Leia watched the man on the other end of the line hit a few buttons. "It is now."

"What do you have?"

"I have film footage of asteroids being gathered from inside the Varion asteroid field by what I believe to be a cloaked ship. The time the footage was shot coincides with the time ships were supposed to have occupied the asteroid field and predates the Denorid disaster by a week or two."

Leia listened to what he had to say, glad that she was dealing with a levelheaded man. At no time in his explanation of what he had did he mention any names or even imply who he felt was responsible. "Has anyone else seen this footage?"

"Yes, but I believe I am the only one to have identified actual asteroid collection. I am working on a film and several editors have gone over the film, but what I am talking about is in the background."

"I want you to give me coordinates where I can meet you. I am going to bring someone else with me, and we will want to see this holo-vid. In the mean time, show your findings to no one. Not anyone. You may continue the editing process of your movie, but if anyone else notices this phenomenon, tell them to disregard it and move on. Edit it out of the final copy if you have to, but no one else may see this."

Leia began to rise from her chair to tell Thomas of the news and paused. "One more thing. Borrel, what you are about to get into will absolutely blow your mind. Once you start down this road you won't be able to turn back with out grave consequences. The players involved in this are bigger than you think. If you have any type of security system around your house, double-check it. Do not plan any trips except the one to meet us. Be very careful. I'll expect the coordinates in one hour sent by normal transmission. Under no circumstances should you try to reach me again. Leia out."

Thomas Thorin was not as excited as Leia. Leia sat in front of him having just told him the news. "He said he was a movie director?"

"That's right," Leia said. "He said he had footage that he had shot for a film, and he found several instances of disappearing asteroids in the background on some of the shots."

"He saw what he thought were disappearing asteroids in the background of some space footage, and he called you to tell you he knew who was responsible for the Denorid disaster. I do not think he's telling us everything, Leia."

"Maybe not. Maybe he has other more incriminating evidence. He was very careful with what he said over the holo-com. He picked up on my urgency and did not say more than he had to. Regardless of how he knows what he knows, he knows it. And we know he's right."

"Yes, but what can we do with it? If he is a film director, like he says, he's not in the news media. Even if he was, how would the public react to a news story that declared their beloved president was responsible for the disaster in the Denorid system?"

"Good point. No one would believe us."

"Wait," Thomas said, second guessing himself. "We don't care how the public reacts. We have been sitting on our hands for the past six months waiting for Snotzenexer to act. This revelation might just bring that action. Yes, I will go with you to meet this film director. When do we leave?"

"Tonight," Leia responded, happy they were finally going to take some action against Snotzenexer.

Chapter 2 "Make Sure You're not Expendable"

President Alexander Snotzenexer walked down the hallway towards the office of his trade advisor. The name "trade advisor" was really quite ridiculous. A normal president hired aides and advisors to assist him in fields in which he felt less than adequately equipped. A trade advisor would normally recommend courses of action to his employer based on that man's expertise on the subject. In this case, Snotzenexer was the one doing all the advising.

Snotzenexer stopped in front of the door to the Twi'lek's office and waited patiently as the trade advisor recognized his presence and opened the door. As Snotzenexer walked through the door and looked around the room at Cog Fardin's collection of computer stations and data cards, he realized that while the Twi'lek rarely advised Snotzenexer, he was far from a novice in the field of trade. Snotzenexer held no illusions that he knew more than this highly educated Twi'lek in the area of commerce and business.

The difference here was that while Cog Fardin might know more about trade and how a federation like the one they were setting up should be run, he did not have a fraction of Snotzenexer's cunning or foresight. Besides that, Snotzenexer was not interested in setting up the most profitable organization possible, he wanted one that would ensure his control over the operation.

"Status," Snotzenexer said simply.

"Fifty-four more freighters joined the Federation in the past month. Mostly they are just small ships that had operated on their own. With the new set up, it is increasingly difficult for entrepreneurs to make a comfortable profit on their own. The small businesses with which they dealt are finding it far less of a hassle to deal with us. Besides the wide selection of cargo and quick delivery, we are almost always capable of offering a lower cost to our customer because of our size.

"You see," Cog began to explain, "our individual profit margins do not need to be as high since we deal with well over five thousand transactions a day. Independent organizations who only make one or two transactions a week need to-"

Snotzenexer waved his hand at the blabbering Twi'lek. "What about Solo?"

Cog looked surprised. He had not spent enough time around the president yet to view this instance of unexpected knowledge as common place. He had been preparing to break the news of Han's joining the Federation in just a few minutes. "He submitted his application two weeks ago. The Pilot Relations Committee handles all the applications. They review the pilots' legal history and cross-check the list of references against the stor-"

Snotzenexer waved his hand again, growing impatient. "Did you assign him a Trade Federation Rep yet?"

"Yes," Cog responded, beginning to get the hint that he was offering too much information. "She is a young Frolian, probably half Solo's age. She just joined the Federation not but a few days ago. With so many pilots joining, we are not capable of providing established Federation members as representatives. Thus, we are hiring people with a hist-" Cog bit back his comments, as Snotzenexer reached a hand out to him. Cog realized he had started to babble again, and that Snotzenexer had not merely cut him off, but also had an expectant look on his face.

"Her file, please," Snotzenexer requested calmly.

"Of course, sir." He dug around his desk for a short while and procured the data card. He quickly slipped it into a pad and handed it to Snotzenexer.

Snotzenexer took the pad and looked closely at the information. Her name was Delan Fowlry. As Cog had said, she was from Froly, a planet near the Detsgor Sector. Froly was known for its short-tempered, efficient, calculating citizens. The jobs listed on Delan's resume all implied positions of authority in areas where she would have dealt with self-assured individualists, much like Solo. She was also gorgeous.

Snotzenexer had managed to remove the Jedi threats, but had not been able to make any moves against the lower profile individuals that had populated the former power base in the government. Mara and Anakin were dead. Luke was still trapped in the Hoth system. He had reason to believe that the Solo twins were indisposed due to the fact that Eran had returned in their ship with no sight of either young Jedi.

While he had managed to remove Wedge, Han, Leia, and the 185th from positions of power, they were still at large. Like he had told Sanson, there was only a handful of ways to kill prominent people without drawing attention to yourself. The remaining members of the former government were all too savvy to fall prey to individual assassin techniques. Snotzenexer would have to organize something far more elaborate to remove them. Something that would likely also be far more traceable.

Here was an interesting situation. If Snotzenexer could organize Solo's route so he stayed away from Yavin IV and Leia, for extended time periods, the temptation of the beautiful young TFR would be much harder to resist. If that marriage was ruined, much of the glue that held any potential resistance together might also come undone.

"I would have liked to meet her," Snotzenexer said, thinking out loud.

"That would have been very improper, sir. The President of the Republic should have no jurisdiction in such matters." Cog was just about to go into the particulars and repercussions of such an act, but held back the excess information.

"Did you meet her?"

The question was fair, and Cog realized he was trapped. "Yes."

"Is it not also unusual for the head of the Trade Federation to inquire into the simple assigning of representatives?"

"Yes, sir, but as you implied by your desire to see her, there are extenuating circumstances. Since she was assigned to Solo, I wanted to make sure she would be fit for the task."

"What was your impression of her?"

"I must say, sir, I am not often attracted to female members of your race. Their continual insistence on coating themselves with colors and scents is very revolti-" Cog paused as he noticed he was rambling again. "But she was very intoxicating. She had the body of a dancer, lithe and powerful. If she had head tails, she would no doubt be in the employ of the royal palace back home as a prominent dancer."

Snotzenexer let out a sigh of frustration. "What of her intellect? Will she take orders from you or myself? How will she react to our ulterior motives once they're revealed? We can't have her siding with Solo when the time comes to remove him."

"She is concerned about money, sir. She wants to get paid. I started her off at a much higher salary than most people in her position and I think a constant flow of credits will keep her on our side."

Snotzenexer nodded in approval. "I also started Solo on probationary status," Cog continued. "Our pilots are only allowed so many infractions before they are removed from service or reduced in pay. Infractions include such things as not responding to a shipment summons, loosing or damaging cargo after or between ownership transferal, delivering cargo late, not-"

"Remove his probation status," Snotzenexer interrupted. The Republic President wanted to keep control of as many things as he could, but he understood that this situation and many like it would be too complex for him to give the attention needed. For this reason he decided to explain his request so he and Cog Fardin could be on the same page.

"You want to keep Solo from making a move against us by putting him on probation. I want you to remove that restriction because I want Solo to make a move against us. I honestly have no idea what the other side is planning to do with their limited resources, but I want to find out. If Solo is under probation he won't have the freedom I want him to have.

"I also assume that this Miss Fowlry has a contact in the Trade Federation to whom she is supposed to give regular updates. I want to be that contact. Do not tell her who I am. Make up a name and position for me, but use my office frequency and give her times of the day when I am available."

Cog nodded, making notes on a data pad. Snotzenexer finished looking at the pad he was holding and set it back on the Twi'lek's desk. "Any further information that you think I should have can be collected into a report and given to my secretary." With that, Snotzenexer turned to leave Cog Fardin's office.

"Uh, one other thing, sir," Cog called to Snotzenexer's back. "Congratulations on the new toca."

Snotzenexer did not turn back to face his advisor as he paused. "Twi'lek have tocas; humans have children. Thank-you, anyway." With that, Snotzenexer left the office.

***

"Hey, Wedge, whatcha up to?"

Wedge Antilles looked over his shoulder to see Anakin Solo coming toward him. "Looking for ships," he replied. "I haven't seen you around in a while," Wedge spun his chair away from the monitor. "What have you been up to?"

"Oh, Mara had me run a couple errands for her. Something about finding a slicer. I think his name was Ghent, or something. She said he was better than me," Anakin grinned, "but I don't buy it."

Wedge thought about it for a while. He'd seen both prodigies at work, and he was not so sure about it either. "You've got him in speed and accuracy, but he's probably got you with technique and versatility."

"Come on Wedge," Anakin boasted. "What can't I do with computers?"

Wedge had noticed a very evident change in Anakin's composure over the past few months. Always before, whenever Wedge had talked with the young Jedi, he had seemed depressed and withdrawn. In the past year, though, he had matured in so many ways that he was beginning to act more like his brother. Plus with all of the activity around Yavin IV, preparing for another rebellion, Anakin finally had an outlet for his skills other than studying at the Academy.

"If you want to impress me with your computer skills, why don't you sit down and help me with this search."

"What exactly are you looking for?" Anakin asked, pulling up a chair next to his uncle's long time friend. "And don't say ships. What kind of ships?"

"Mara and Thomas are running this little gambit against Snotzenexer and both have warned me that the winner might be decided with turbo lasers. Currently our inventory of ships comes down to a couple fighters, the Lady Luck, the Falcon, and the Jade's Fire. While the fighters and freighters are excellent ships, they won't stand up to Snotzenexer's two dozen or so Star Destroyers, plus the countless Republic ships his wife now commands in the Republic military."

Anakin looked curiously at Wedge. "You want to go up against the Republic Navy? You're crazy! Even after Danzig 359 and with the slow rebuilding process, the Republic has over 200 battle worthy capitol ships and literally thousands of smaller ships."

"Now you know why I'm looking for ships," Wedge responded. Anakin was right about the Republic's fleet strength, but the count was misleading. Most of the ships were on patrol or sentry hundreds of light years from each other. It would take over a month just to assemble the whole fleet, much less coordinate it into a usable fighting force.

Wedge had commanded twice that number of ships when he had been Admiral of the Republic Navy, and he knew how things worked. If Sanson tried to assemble a fleet for battle on even a week's notice, she would only come up with about 30 ships in addition to her collection of Star Destroyers. Still, that was 30 more ships than Wedge had.

"I'm looking at the galactic history Tionne has compiled to see if I can read between the lines and find some great war that happened with ships unaccounted for. Maybe a fleet got lost in a wormhole, or a disease whipped out a civilization, leaving its ships floating somewhere in space."

Anakin nodded, understanding. "I suggest you start looking in the Clone Wars."

"I'm not going to find anything there, Anakin," Wedge looked startled. "I was almost alive for that. I'm looking for something far enough back to have been forgotten."

"You won't find anything," Anakin responded with a sure tone. "I've studied the Clone Wars. The Sith built more stockades and weapon stashes than can likely be counted. Lots of them weren't used. My grandfather was an unexpected trump card the Dark Side was able to play, making many of the stockades unnecessary. Now they are just collecting dust."

"Hasn't anyone ever looked for them?" Wedge asked.

"Who would have a reason?" Anakin asked. "Since the Clone Wars, there have been only two exchanges of power, and the only big battles were fought outside of the Force, for the most part. The Emperor was not going to dig them up. I'm sure the idea he might need backup never entered his mind. Once we gained power, we had no need for ships. Thrawn is the only one who went looking for help. He found the lost dreadnoughts and the Wayland base. Even if he knew where a Sith stronghold was, he would have never been able to open it."

Wedge was scanning battles and lists of casualties from the Clone Wars as Anakin talked, having no idea what he was looking for. "So how do we find one?"

"First we have to think like Sith," Anakin said with a mischievous grin. "They have a history of hiding out on primitive worlds to gain the admiration of the population there. Technology has always been the Sith's worst enemy. Is the Republic monitoring any primitive worlds right now?"

Wedge gained access to the list of quarantined worlds and began crosschecking them with their proximity to the core worlds. The Republic had developed a new system when dealing with worlds that had not yet gained space flight technology. These planets had been at the mercy of the Empire before, but now the Republic used masked probes to track their technological progress. When the civilization was ready to join the rest of the galaxy, the Republic sent dignitaries and representatives to great them into their new life. The planets did one of two things. They either joined the Republic, glad to be so well received, or they desperately tried to wage war against the rest of the galaxy. The second option never went well for either side, and those planets were usually gutted and ripped apart, leaving them fresh for crime lords and natural resource pillagers.

"There are a few planets right now, but none of them claim to be harboring Sith strongholds," Wedge observed.

Anakin ignored the sarcasm. "The Sith would need a spot that would be undisturbed during their absence. Do any of the planets have deserted moons with atmospheres? Are there any vast oceans with the potential for an undiscovered island?"

"Here's something," Wedge said finally. "Bersd is the name of the planet. It looks like they just gained satellite capability a dozen years ago. They found a very unusual archeological site in the middle of their vast dessert."

"How big is the dessert?" Anakin asked, wondering if it was a good Sith prospect.

"About 5000 kilometers at its most narrow point," Wedge said. "I doubt anyone ever tried to cross it before. There's no real way to tell how long whatever they found has been there. The news reports the Republic probe is able to pick up claim that the site is so amazing that most people are attributing its existence in the middle of the wasteland to their god."

Anakin had a weird sensation about this planet. "Sounds like the perfect environment for a Sith who wants to come back to power. He erects a stronghold in the middle of nowhere that will likely never be found. And if it is, it will be looked at like a temple to an unknown god. Then when the Sith shows up. . ."

"The god is no longer unknown," Wedge finished the thought.

"Well," Anakin said, rising from his seat, "are you ready to make a trip?"

***

Ferris Loyran was relaxing in a lounge chair on his porch looking out over the lake. He owned the entire body of water and was therefore able to keep other eager homebuilders from cluttering the shoreline. Thick, uninterrupted trees bordered this mountain side lake, and the morning fog hovered over the placid, blue water like a forest ghost. The sun would be long in coming over the eastern peaks keeping this scene just as it was for at least an hour longer.

President Loyran often liked to get in his kayak and paddle around the relatively small lake during mornings like this. The cool, moist, mountain air helped wash away most of the stress that accumulated in his body throughout the week. It was weekends like this, away from his orbiting office, and in his mountain mansion that reminded him why he went through all the troubles of being the president of the fastest growing shipyard in ten sectors. Only the Republic's own shipyard at Coruscant compared to his, and that might not last as Snotzenexer was constantly trying to unify everything into one, easily-controllable entity.

Ferris knew a time might be coming soon when he would have to leave the Varion system to take up residence on Coruscant permanently. Snotzenexer had brought Ferris into his confidence, more out of necessity than want. It was just too hard for the Republic President to hide all his actions from the observant head of operations. Snotzenexer had had two choices: remove Ferris or use him.

Ferris was glad that the powerful man had chosen the latter, but knew the former was always possible if he did not comply with Snotzenexer's wants. "Lead, follow, or get out of the way," Ferris said, repeating a popular phrase among big businesses, "or be removed," he added, chuckling to himself. He slowly sipped his morning fruit drink as he looked out over his lake.

"Sir," a polite, male voice from behind interrupted his relaxation. "There is someone here to see you."

"Walters, what time is it?" Ferris asked without looking back.

"It is a quarter past seven, sir," the butler replied.

Who in the world would visit at this hour on a weekend, Ferris thought. Besides, not too many people knew where this place was. "It better not be my ex, Walters."

"Trust me, sir," the older man said, his voice begging more respect from his employer, "I disliked her even more than you did. Your visitor is a woman, though, and she seemed very insistent on seeing you."

"Did she give a name?"

"Yes, though I have a hard time believing it. She called herself Sandie Hollins."

This name finally got a physical reaction from Ferris. The President of the Varion Imperial Bank was the highest ranking, non-political figure in the entire system. What President Hollins wanted, she got. Most of her authority came through the fact that her orders were seen as tantamount to Snotzenexer's. Still, the woman did not ride completely on the former president's coat tails. With the help of the system's press, President Hollins had made sure the public realized that she was not part of a puppet regime, but planned on making most of her decisions independently from the Republic President. Snotzenexer still had an office to return to when ever he wanted, but his input could be likened to that of a prominent board member, and not of a puppeteer.

"Please show her out here."

"Yes sir," Walters replied and disappeared.

Before the butler returned with Ferris' guest, the president made sure that his morning robe was cinched tightly over his sleeping attire. This probably was not a business meeting, but he did not want to get too casual with his guest.

Sandie followed Walters onto the porch a few moments later. She was dressed for the weekend with a light windbreaker over a white T-shirt and navy slacks. "Good morning, President Hollins," Ferris rose and extended his hand. "This is definitely an unexpected, yet pleasant surprise. Would you like something to drink?"

Sandie seemed cheery enough as she took the offered hand, yet she had a look in her eyes that told of hidden urgency. Almost like she expected to be pounced on by a predator at any moment. "Thank-you, President Loyran." She turned to Walters. "A glass of water will be fine, with a squirt of cerulean nectar, if you could."

"No problem, Miss."

Walters disappeared quickly as Ferris motioned to another lounge chair alongside his own. Sandie unzipped her jacket and sat herself down, her eyes appreciating Ferris' misty back yard. Before either president could speak, Walter's reappeared with Sandie's drink and then vanished just as quickly.

"Well," Ferris started, "to what do I owe this unusual visit?"

"To whom," Sandie corrected, thinking Ferris would know exactly whom she was referring to.

"Ah," Ferris observed slowly.

"Let me start by apologizing for intruding upon your home like this. I just felt this was the only safe spot where we could talk."

Ferris had the feeling Sandie still did not feel safe, regardless of the fact that there was no chance of this conversation being heard by anyone other than his butler, a man who had been with the Loyran family all his life. "What did you find?" he asked.

Sandie sighed and took a deep drink from her glass. She still was not comfortable talking about things out loud. Half the time she did not even feel safe thinking about them. "What didn't I find," she finally answered.

"Let me guess," Ferris said, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair. "You have pretty convincing evidence that Snotzenexer broke a few rules to gain his position. It's not concrete evidence, but in your eyes it's almost irrefutable."

Sandie nodded mutely, though with Ferris' eyes closed, he could not see her.

"He cheated on a few taxes, laundered some money, and might have even stolen some, and you want to know what to do about it. Am I right?" He opened his eyes and looked at her for the last line.

"Most of it is more serious than what you're saying," Sandie insisted. It sounded to her like the VCY's president was taking this situation rather lightly. She had not forgotten that some of Snotzenexer's misdealings involved large monitory contributions to the Varion Construction Yards, something her host was no doubt aware of.

"I doubt it," Ferris replied. "Most of it might imply far more serious activity, but nothing that you found would be able to prove it."

"There are just too many coincidences that had to have taken place for things to happen like they did. I came to you because your company came up in several instances involving Snotzenexer and-"

"Are you warning me before you go public with what you found?" Ferris interrupted.

Sandie was shocked. It was not the implication that she was accusing him of a crime - it was the idea of going public. She suddenly understood her associate's calm composure. He probably knew more than she did, especially since most of her knowledge was the result of guesswork.

"It just doesn't make sense," Sandie finally said. "If I wanted to do what he did, there are lots of ways to hide it. If he had even just filled out some of the appropriate datapad work that accompanied most of his questionable transactions, it would have kept me, or anyone else, from going over them and discovering what he did. In fact, I could have done twice as much as did and not get caught. It just doesn't make sense that someone as smart and knowledgeable as Snotzenexer would be so careless."

"I'm sure he wasn't that careless," Ferris said, not believing Sandie was being completely fare with the Republic President. "Just think of all the things you don't know."

"And you do," Sandie guessed.

And guessed correctly, Ferris thought. "I can tell you this. I have a pretty good idea why Snotzenexer left such an obvious trail-"

"It really wasn't that obvious," Sandie jumped in. "It took three auditing agencies and myself to sort through what he did and even then we didn't see everything right away. The discrepancies were there, but it took a lot of time to solve them."

"I am willing to bet my life on the fact that Alexander Snotzenexer had never set foot in a bank before the day he became president of the VIB," Ferris said.

Sandie literally laughed out loud at the idea. "Impossible," she said quickly and then paused in thought.

"You said it yourself," Ferris insisted. "All it would have taken was a signature here, an insignia stamp there, and you would have never found anything. Don't you think someone with even a tenth of the experience Snotzenexer claims to have would know that?"

The idea no longer seemed so ludicrous to Sandie. She could see now that most of the slightly illegal things Snotzenexer had done were brilliantly conceived and executed, but lacking in protocol. It was kind of like a kid who builds the most spectacular sandcastle imaginable with winding staircases and intricate sculptures, only to have it wiped out by the tide. The tide was a pretty simple phenomenon, but for someone who has never been to the beach before, it comes as a surprise.

"Why the lie, then?" Sandie asked.

"One reason was probably to get the former VIB President to deal with him, though more likely to hide what he had really done all his life."

"Which was. . ." Sandie prompted, feeling that Ferris had the answer.

"Before Snotzenexer ever held the title of president, he was an Admiral." Ferris turned to look directly at Sandie as he continued, enjoying the look of shock on her face. "He was an Admiral in the Imperial Navy. My guess is that he was active in the Imperial Navy as recently as the Danzig system."

Sandie could not speak.

"Of course all my knowledge is based on speculation, but, like your information, the speculations are based upon some pretty solid facts." Ferris almost laughed at Sandie's reaction. "Don't look so surprised. So you've found out your hero is a liar, a thief, and a cheat. It's not like he's a murderer."

Sandie thought back to her former boss. He had committed suicide as a direct result of one of Snotzenexer's moves. "Not directly anyway," Sandie finally managed in response to Ferris' last statement.

"There are two different types of people at the top. There are those who attained their position with knowledge, skill, and hard work. And there are those who are in power simply because they were the last person standing when the smoke cleared. In both instances, the people earned their place, and both are prepared to handle what is thrown at them. You might look at it as the difference between honesty and dishonesty, but that's probably only because you fall into the first category. I would not want anyone to document how I rose to the top of my company. If you knew what I did when I was a kid trying to get ahead in business, you'd be horrified.

"The difference with our mutual friend is that he used both tactics. Most people I deal with know how I attained my position. They know that I won't take any crap from anyone and they treat me with respect. Most people also know how you attained your position. You have a reputation for being an intellectual. People are not going to try and cheat or swindle you because they know you'll see right through it.

"Snotzenexer has the whole galaxy convinced that he is like you, when really he's more like you and me. There is no way that anyone, I don't care if they are twice as smart as Snotzenexer, could ever do what he did, in the time he did it, without breaking a few rules."

"But an Imperial?" Sandie asked, still stuck on that new piece of information.

"What if I told you I was Engoian?" Ferris asked. Sandie instinctively recoiled from her host at the mention of the very prejudiced race. "I'm not," he quickly assured her, "but if I was, would that make any difference? My past is my past. What matters is what I am doing now. Yea, Snotzenexer is not perfect, and maybe he doesn't deserve to be president of the whole galaxy, but what are you going to do about it?"

Sandie thought hard about this for a while as Ferris continued to talk. "I know what you're thinking, because I've thought it myself. 'What if his trickery continues into his Republic Presidency? What if what he is doing even now is just more deceiving activity that will only be discovered a year from now when it is too late?' To this I have to ask myself what Snotzenexer would possibly have to gain. I place myself in his shoes and can only come up with one plausible explanation for everything.

"Imagine that you are an Imperial Admiral on the run. You are a genius. You are so much smarter than anyone else you've ever met that it is ridiculous. Despite this personal skill, you consistently loose battle after battle because the remaining Imperials are so disorganized that the Republic rolls over them with ease. You just barely escaped from Danzig and realize that the Empire is truly dead. You decide it is finally time to throw in the towel and admit defeat.

"The one problem is that the government you are now going to live under is showing just as much ineptitude as the one you were just a part of. You constantly remember thinking that if you could have just been given the reigns of the Empire, they would have never lost. But now that they have, you do not want to go through the same thing with this new government.

"It's no longer about Empire vs. Republic, it's far less complicated than that. It's simply not having the patience to watch someone screw something up while you sit by having to watch - having to live with their mistakes. You just want to be given the chance to show you can do it better than anyone else."

"You think it all comes down to pride?" Sandie asked, not convinced.

"You're not married, are you? When a man, especially a man of Snotzenexer's intellect, sees something that he knows he can fix, he's going to try."

"What if you're wrong?" Sandie dared to ask. "What if this is not about fixing a broken government?"

"What if this is about returning to the Imperial glory days?" Ferris voiced Sandie's thoughts. "I put the odds of that at about one in ten. Even if that happens, I'm prepared. If you feel uncomfortable about it, just make sure you have a contingency plan. Try to make sure you're not expendable. That's about all I can tell you right now."

The two of them did not talk for a long time. The sun was just peeking over the tops of the mountains and the two presidents were content to forget about their worries for a moment to view the spectacle.

Sandie drove down from the mountains an hour later still mulling over the last thing Ferris Loyran had said to her. "Try to make sure you're not expendable." Was she? Sandie knew what Snotzenexer was doing with the VIB better than most people. The financial kingdom Snotzenexer had created was playing a vital role in almost all of the new administrations and organizations he was setting up. Sandie needed to attach herself to the innerworkings of the bank so intimately as to make it impossible to remove her from it. Like Siamese twins, it would take an incredibly skilled physician to separate her from the VIB. Sandie remembered who she was dealing - who the physician would be - and decided it might not be a bad idea to get herself some protection just in case.

Chapter 3 "Recruiting Allies"

Quintil Harpinge sat nervously behind his desk. His eyes spun around his office like a frightened animal, constantly checking the cracks and nooks among his bookshelves and indoor plants. His eyes rested briefly on his huge window over-looking the skyline of Corsoloron City. It was a great view, but right now Quintil wished it was made of five-centimeter thick durrasteel. As it was, the scared CEO had erected an energy shield around the window, protecting against almost all potential laser fire. Still, any number of projectile missiles could find their way into his office, but the shield gave him some small level of safety.

It had all started to crumble about four months ago for the software tycoon. He was ranked in the top 50 wealthiest men in the corporate sector and in the top 100 for the entire recorded galaxy. The corporate sector was a vicious place to do business, and ambitious men and aliens came and went as quickly as weather fronts. Some dropped a lot of rain and others made a lot of wind and noise, but after a short while, it was almost as if they had never existed.

There were lots of businesses that were not recommended as smart ventures in the corporate sector. Weapon technology was something that was never a good idea to get into. Once a new style weapon was developed and marketed, it took a long time to tool up the manufacturing process to meet the demand, and by that time, the weapon was outdated by at least four other versions.

Designing HVAC systems was another big business with companies starting and dying within a standard year. With so many office buildings and corporate headquarters littered all over the sector, and so many new buildings going up, the need for quality heating, ventilating, and air conditioning was definitely there, but the competition was so vicious that only established companies who had experience with the numerous codes and regulations were able to survive. Plus, all it took was one building to burn down and the company responsible for the anti-fire system was put out of business with lawsuits. It did not matter if a competing corporation started the fire, all that mattered was that the HVAC system had failed.

Probably the most risky venture was computer software. Like with weapons, the technology was always advancing so fast, that no one could get their product to market fast enough to stay ahead of the development. The trick for a new company was to develop a system advanced enough and secret enough so it was brought to market just as another competing system became available. This would take advantage of all the advertising the other company had done, plus provide a better product.

Quintil had been able to do just that. Fifteen years ago, when he had started out, he had not only provided a tax software system that was the best on the market, but it was still top of the line. In addition, he made advancements each year, further distancing himself from the competition. Once he had gotten a name for himself and investors were begging to get in on his company, it was easy sailing.

It had been easy, that is, until now.

"Sir," the intercom on Quintil's desk blurted out. "There is a Miss James here to see you. She is a reporter from the Ghrockyt Review."

"Endi, you know what I told you about reporters. I'm not going to see her."

"But sir, this is the fifth one in four days. I do not know what is going on, but I think you need to address the public sooner or later."

"I do not need to take advice from my secretary, Endi."

That comment should have ended the discussion, but the persistent secretary continued. "Sir, there is something about this reporter. I do not think you should turn her away. She could be trouble."

Quintil sighed. "Send her through security and show her up," he finally gave in.

"Very well, sir."

This should not be too hard, Quintil thought to himself. She's only a reporter. She can't know that much yet. Still, now that the reporter frenzy had started, Quintil realized it was time to go into hiding before the authorities came for him.

The reporter came in after about two minutes. She was attractive, but not dressed so. Most female reporters tried to get him off guard with short skirts and tight, white blouses. This one wore a very conservative skirt with a baggy sweater. From what Quintil could see she had the body to put him off guard if she had chosen to, but the fact she did not try meant she had enough information so as to not need the sex-tactics.

Quintil motioned her to a chair in front of his desk, already wishing he had not accepted this interview. He was under no obligation to speak with the reporter, but he wanted to know exactly what people where finding out about his shady dealings. He should also probably have a lawyer present. He would, too, if it was not for the fact he did not have one and would boil his head in rotten egg yolks before he ever got one.

"Would you like something to drink, Miss James?" he offered politely, walking over to a small bar and pouring himself a virgin drink.

"No thank-you," she declined politely. "You may call me Mary."

"Okay, Mary," Quintil complied once he returned to his seat, "what can I do for you?"

"First things first. Is your name Quintil G. Harpringe?"

Quintil nodded in response to the question.

"What does the 'G' stand for?"

No response.

"Just curious. Well, Quintil," she started, assuming a first name basis, "your name has been in the press a lot lately. It seems that several governments have found they are missing large amounts of money, and most of them are blaming your software."

Quintil raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, as if this was news to him.

"In fact almost every planetary government that used your system over the past dozen years and is now switching over to the Trade Federation software is finding inconsistencies. What these companies are finding is that when they had been charging incoming shipments the various collection of taxes that applied to that shipment, your software had been skimming an extra fraction of credit off each transaction. It was very clever actually. Rarely did the taxes come out to an even credit and your software took that extra fraction and stored it in a separate account. No one ever noticed this skim because your software reported to one side that it had rounded the amount down and showed the other that it had rounded up.

"Now that the Trade Federation is slowly spreading its jurisdiction throughout the Corporate Sector, these systems are being overhauled, and the rounding error is being discovered. At first it was thought to be just that, an error, but after checking electronic receipts with shippers, it was found that in almost every case there was a discrepency of about one credit per transaction.

"Of course now the question is: 'Where is the money?' Before your software came around, governments were bogged down in datapad work, employing way too many people to handle the flow of commerce in and out of their planets. When you came along, you developed a program that could handle countless accounts at once, running everything flawlessly, eliminating a lot of the wasted personnel and making customs much easier for everyone involved.

"I guess this hidden tax of yours should be looked at as a minor inconvenience. After all it is only about half a credit per shipment, while the governments were wasting far more than that before. The only problem is that each government figures to have dealt with several million traders over the past dozen years. Even then, its only about three or four million credits per government, but when you multiply that by the hundreds of governments that are running your software, you turn into quite the crook."

Through the accusations, all of which were true, Quintil was slowly working his hand under his desk.

"Of course this means that your current ranking of 27th in the recent poll of the wealthiest beings in the Corporate Sector is probably inaccurate. I mean what is several billion credits worth invested over a dozen years tax free? You're probably closer to 15th on the money list, are not you?"

"Twelfth, actually," Quintil admitted bluntly. He had already made up his mind that this woman would not leave his office alive. He had not guessed a tenth of what the public knew.

"So where did the money go?" Mary asked, pretending not to be startled by Quintil's admission of guilt.

"It was funneled into a dummy account. The names for the dummy accounts were different for each government, and each year, right before tax time, each dummy would empty the entire account with a charitable donation to Feed the Famished located here on Corsoloron. Of course the charitable organization did very little feeding, but it did just enough to keep its donations tax deductible. Heck, each year we even got contributions from real people who were just too stupid to research the organization they contributed to."

Quintil slowly flipped open a hidden compartment under his desk holding a blaster. "I do not regret what I did. Like you said, I saved each government at least ten credits a transaction. I deserved at least five percent, if not fifty. Besides, I think Feed the Famished actually did save several families from starvation each month."

Quintil removed the blaster from its holster and slowly brought it to his lap. "I know my customers won't see things the same way I do, so that's why I have to make sure they never see me again." He quickly brought his blaster above his desk. "Or you."

Mary never shifted from her comfortable position in her chair as the blaster was aimed right at her heart. A clawed hand with fingers like steel cables clamped suddenly on Quintil's gun wrist, forcing him to drop the weapon instantly. "I would not do that if I were you," a gruff voice from behind him said.

Quintil saw the hairy arm coming around from behind him, securing his wrist with incredible strength. He had no idea how a beast could have slipped into his office unnoticed, but there was no denying the presence behind him. Another clawed hand secured itself on Quintil's neck, preventing him from turning to see his enemy and keeping his eyes focused forward on Mary James.

Mary rose from her chair and picked up the dropped blaster, looking at it like it was a foul piece of garbage. "Really, is this how you treat old friends. I would have expected better from you." She leaned very close to him from across the desk, paying no mind to the alien who had him secured from behind. "You know, I'd still like to know what the 'G' in your name stands for. It would not be Ghent by any chance, would it?"

It all clicked in his mind. Old friends. His real name. And her name: Mary James. "Mara Jade? Is that you?"

He suddenly sounded like the young slicer Mara remembered from her days with Karrde. "Yes it's me," she replied, dropping her Force disguise for the time being.

"And your friend?" Ghent asked, too startled by this sudden change of events to compose himself properly.

"Oh, him," Mara cast a look behind the seated slicer, "Ra'tok's harmless. You can let him go now."

"Are you sure? He did try to kill you just now."

"He'd have never pulled the trigger. I know him too well."

Ghent begged to differ. He had had every intention of killing Mary James, the reporter, but the Defel behind him let him go anyway. "I do not suppose you paid me a visit for a loan, did you?"

Mara laughed. "Not hardly. I came here to offer you a way out."

Ghent tried to relax a little, but it was not easy. Ra'tok was still behind him, not trusting the man like Mara did. "How much do the governments really know?"

"They haven't a clue," Mara replied.

"But you were the fifth reporter to come to see me."

Mara shook her head. "I am the only person who has come to see you. I just came five different times. I have the ability to change my appearance through the Force." Mara paused. "Though Anakin tells me it's only a matter of time before real reporters start showing up."

"Anakin?" Ghent had not heard the name before.

"He's a Jedi slicer who is probably the only person in the galaxy who could have seen through your scheme in less than an hour."

Ghent scoffed at the boast. The glitch in the system had cropped up four months ago and Ghent's latest information said they were only noticing a few discrepancies between charges and receipts.

It was true though, once the fiscal year ended and the governments started switching over to the Trade Federation's tariff free system, there would be nothing to skim and deposits of zero credits would routinely be made into his dummy accounts. Then once a year imaginary citizens all over the sector would make zero sum donations to his charitable front. It would definitely be noticed. He was just scared that someone could get lucky early on and figure it all out.

Sensing Ghent's disbelief, Mara elaborated. "Anakin can go beyond the screen and keyboard. He can use the Force to actually follow a program logistically as it runs. Much like traveling down the streets of a city, Anakin gets into the program mentally and figures out what's going on."

"My program uses thousands of redirections to divert anyone from seeing where the fractional credits are going. There's no way anyone could follow that, besides, it does all the transactions in less than a second."

"And I said it took him an hour, a time frame which contains 3,600 seconds. How else do you think I know what I know?"

Ghent shrugged his shoulders, realizing neither side of this conversation was going to convince the other they were wrong. "You said you had a way out for me?"

"Have you been keeping up with galactic affairs?"

"Other than what the Trade Federation is doing with my software, no."

Mara spent five quick minutes explaining what had happened, sparing none of Snotzenexer's atrocities. Ghent looked very somber, his problems seeming suddenly insignificant. "Are you going to offer me a way out of my predicament or into yours?"

"Both," Mara answered. "I've found out that the Trade Federation is getting ready to handle the distribution involved in Snotzenexer's new drug administration. The first crops of medicine are just coming in and the expected demand is growing by ten percent every week. Federation Administrator, Cog Fardin, has been looking for someone to oversee this infusion of traffic and to organize a complete system upgrade. He has not placed an ad yet, knowing what kind of response he would get, but I can get you an interview. I'm sure you're exactly what he's looking for."

"How would this help either me or you?"

"When this fiscal year ends, like you said, all of the bugs in your software are going to crop up. I'm sure you can guess where the red lights will come on first."

"Trade Federation Headquarters," Ghent said, realizing that if he had a few months to prepare the system, he could not only eliminate his chances of being found out, but also probably even keep his scam running. If he set up the same operation in the Trade Federation, he would be able to skim accounts from all over the galaxy, turning his current yearly income into a daily one. "Sounds good for me, what about you?"

"You can imagine that Luke, Han, and Leia are not exactly happy with the change of events and are planning to overthrow Snotzenexer. Right now the Trade Federation represents over half of Snotzenexer's power. Through it he controls all food, medicine, weapons, supplies, etc. With it he can starve any planet he chooses. When the time comes, we are going to need to seize control of the system."

Ghent understood the monumental task ahead of him much better than Mara did. He would be one man against an entire, galaxy-wide organization. If the "time" came too soon, he would not have a prayer of seizing anything. However, if he was given time to automate as much as he could, he might have a chance. Either way, the proposition offered him an astronomical increase in pay, a chance to weasel out of his current sticky situation, and the first real challenge for his skills since he had started his present business fifteen years ago.

"I accept," Ghent said, a large smile on his face.

***

Leia and Thomas climbed through the hatchway, and thousands of people erupted into cheers. Leia was not ready for the welcome, and it took her several moments to realize the applause was not for her. Five meters above her head was the edge of the Ultra-Grav Football capsule. Leia had never been to a professional sporting event before, and it took a while to get used to the atmosphere.

They were inside of a huge cylindrical arena rotating in space. The cylinder was 110 meters long and 50 meters in diameter. Because of its rotation, all of the spectators entered the arena through the axis. From the entry point, catwalks covered the outside of the main arena, leading the spectators to their designated seats.

Once inside the arena, the spinning was no longer noticeable, save for the slight gravity that kept the fans in their seats covering the inside of the cylinder. Suspended in the middle of the arena, five meters from the edge, was the playing capsule. It was made of a padded, transparent plexi-glassine, allowing the spectators an excellent view of the activity inside.

The induced gravity was about two meters per second squared, or about a fifth of a normal sized planet. Because of this, the players were able to hurl themselves, and the ball, around the capsule with incredible ease and dexterity. The further from the edge of the capsule, the less gravity became. At each end of the capsule, a goal, five meters in diameter, was cut into the wall.

Each team was given a goal and fifteen players with which to defend it. The 30 players ran around the inside circumference of the playing field, passing the ball towards their opponent's goal. The passes were incredible, often crossing the diameter of the capsule. Players would launch the ball to their teammates who appeared to be walking on the ceiling. The receiving teammate would in turn launch the ball back at a 45-degree angle to another player standing 90 degrees away in the cylindrical playing field.

The goalies tried to stay in front of their goals, hovering in the air along the neutral central axis. Occasionally, several players would launch a teammate into the air, breaking the weak gravity and spinning him into the center of the capsule. A pass would meet him in the middle and with a spinning kick, the player would send a shot on goal. The goalie would block it, or he would not. Most recently, he had not, and the crowd was just now settling down.

Leia and Thomas looked at the ticket vouchers to see where they were supposed to sit. They walked between the seated crowd that curved upward in both directions. Leia had never been in an artificial gravity cylinder this small before, and she was still trying to get used to the low gravity.

Leia stopped in front of row 97 and begged her and Thomas' pardon as they worked their way towards seats 12 and 13. The seats were dramatically reclined so the spectators could look directly up at the action above. There was not room to comfortably squat down to lay in the chair, and Leia was troubled as to how to lower herself into it. Thomas recognized the low gravity and flopped himself backwards, almost floating into the chair. Leia tentatively fell backwards too, and experienced a very scary few moments as she fell slowly into the chair.

"You must be Leia Solo," a man said before Leia could get her bearings.

The view she was blessed with once she got into her chair was amazing. The activity inside the capsule was very intense. A second ball had just been added to the game, and to try and follow both took Jedi-like concentration.

"Leia Solo?" the man asked again, hoping he was not mistaken.

Leia turned her head, just then remembering why she was there at all. "Yes," she replied. "Borrel Curtis?" she asked in return.

The director nodded. "Is he with you too?" he gestured toward Thomas. Leia nodded in return, not trusting the volume of her voice with the crowd yelling at a missed shot. "I should probably sit between you. It will make conversation easier." Not waiting for Leia's response, Borrel pushed off with his elbows and quickly became vertical.

To Leia, who still was not used to the low gravity, the move made Borrel look incredibly strong. So amazed was Leia, that as Borrel side-stepped in front of Leia's chair and started to fall back again, Leia still had not moved. She now quickly scrambled over the armrest between her chair and the recently vacated on, settling into Borrel's chair, just as he floated back into hers.

Borrel introduced himself to Thomas briefly, and the three people got down to business. Amidst the cheers and cries of the thousands of fans around them, Leia and Thomas explained to Borrel the gruesome realities that surrounded Snotzenexer's rise to power. Even if the fans around them knew what kind of information was being discussed at nearly shouting volume at times, they would not have cared. This football game was between the sector's two best teams, and a heated rivalry was growing that would not be settled until the playoffs.

After the explanation was finished, Borrel shifted in his chair, suddenly very uncomfortable. It was half time now and most of the crowd was moving toward the refreshment stands or to the public refreshers that littered the outside of the cylinder.

"Do you have the recordings you spoke of with you?" Thomas asked.

Borrel nodded. "They're in my ship."

"I want to see them," Thomas said.

Borrel again shoved with his elbows, making him suddenly erect. Leia and Thomas followed suit and they worked themselves into the crowd and out of the main cylinder. The catwalks surrounding the main structure were crowded with people, and Leia was reminded of their constant motion as she watched the stars around them spinning by.

The trio made their way to the end of the spinning sports complex. An energy field, keeping the deadly vacuum well beyond the reach of the farthest catwalk surrounded the entire structure. The exit was not very crowded, the three conspirers being the only people who wanted to leave the exiting game. All three made their way through the transition tube between the spinning arena and the stationary dock.

The parking lot for the sporting complex was similar to a water pier, metal fingers branching out in all directions to docked spaceships. A few huge public transits sat at their designated docks, but personal yachts took up most of the docks. Without the spinning motion of the arena, the dock structure relied on more conventional artificial gravity.

Again energy shields to hold in the air covered the catwalks. The parking lot was packed to its maximum capacity, giving the Leia, Thomas, and Borrel and very nice view of thousands of ships. The area was very crowded, but Leia could imagine what this place would look like empty. The dark colored durasteel walkways would be nearly invisible against the black back drop of space, and it would appear to anyone standing in the empty parking lot that they were simply floating in the middle of space.

Borrel's ship was company owned, as were the tickets they had used to get into the football game. Borrel flashed his parking voucher into the scanning field and the lock to the docking sleeve was opened. The three moved through the sleeve and Borrel opened the ship.

Borrel led them to the media room, a must for a ship owned by the TBC. There were three cards sitting on top of a media player and Borrel slipped one of them in without speaking. He motioned for his guests to have a seat in one of the soft chairs along the wall. Before retreating from the media console, Borrel switched on a large holo-viewer and picked up a remote.

"This is footage from a probe we sent into the asteroid field in the Varion system to get footage for a movie I was producing," Borrel said as he walked over to a chair. The asteroids were already flying through the void above the holo viewer when he turned it on. He plopped down in a chair and dimmed the lights. "We used ten different probes before we got the footage we wanted."

Without warning, Borrel started to fast-forward the recording. Leia gasped as the asteroids suddenly increased their speed ten-fold. Borrel had watched each of the three holo-cards many times and had the location of the disappearing asteroids memorized. He suddenly returned the holo playback to normal speed and then initiated super-slow motion.

"Right here," Borrel motioned with a laser pointer built into the remote, "you can see what I'm talking about."

Leia and Thomas watched closely as an asteroid slowly moved behind an invisible barrier. Borrel rewound and enlarged the area of interest. As he played it again, Leia could clearly see that a distinct edge was moving across the asteroid as it slipped into invisibility.

"It looks like a straight edge," Borrel commented, rewinding and enlarging again, "but I had the computers look at it and there is a curve to it."

"It is a spherical cloaking device," Thomas said resolutely. "Nothing else could produce that effect."

"This is great," Leia said. "Now we have proof that Snotzenexer is behind the tragedy in the Denorid system!"

"We already had proof that the asteroids came from the Varion system," Thomas pointed out, reminding Leia of Wedge and Perry's analysis of the asteroids' mineral makeup. "This," he gestured to the holo image, which was playing back for a fourth time, "is not news to us."

"Then why did we come out here for it?" Leia asked.

"Because now we have a contact in the media who will work with us," Thomas said, turning to look at Borrel.

Borrel got up quickly, raising the lights. "Wait a minute, buddy. I don't know what you're planning, but I just found this and thought you might want to see it. I don't want to join up with you or anything."

"Yes you do," Thomas said confidently. "You would not have called us out here if you didn't want to help in some way."

"This is that way," Borrel said, laying the remote down next to the other two holo-cards that contained disappearing asteroids. "If you already knew what I found out, that's great, but I have no intention of bucking the system."

Thomas looked intently at the man in front of him. He could see that he was still in shock about what he and Leia had told him back in the arena. He had already thought that Snotzenexer was a mass murderer, but having every detail of the president's plan laid out for him, brought to life how real this situation actually was. Everyone who had gotten in the way of Snotzenexer's plans had died. The only ones to survive had been Jedi, and not all of them had made it.

Even though Borrel was scared at the idea, he still held some animosity toward the Republic's leader. He had harbored these crazy ideas about Snotzenexer being a villain and had dreamt of all the ways he could bring the president down. Like all conspiracy theorists, he was all talk and no show. When his hand was called and the money placed on the table, Borrel was having a tough time just anteing up, much less meeting the high bets.

"What are you willing to do?" Thomas asked, trying to catch the director in a trap.

"What do you mean?" Borrel responded.

"What were your plans when you sent us the ticket vouchers for this sporting event? After you showed us the holo, what were you going to do? You were going to help us, weren't you?"

"I had no idea that thi-"

"You had an idea," Leia interrupted. "You told me in your original call that you had an idea."

"A crazy idea. I did not thin-"

"A crazy idea that made you call the former president of the Republic on the holo-com," Thomas said. "I think you had more crazy ideas. Ideas that involved helping us bring down Snotzenexer."

"He'll kill me."

That was it. Leia and Thomas had brought nothing knew to the table other than the fact that Snotzenexer would definitely try to kill them. The holo-film archives are filled with stories about corrupt politicians that are attacked by lowly citizens. The whistle blowers always get the rough treatment from the accused, but some how slip away from the attackers and finally get their day in court. All the films end with the whistle blower on the shoulders of the public throng, while the crooked politician is put behind bars.

Borrel had images of being that whistle blower, but until now, he had only seen himself as the celebrated fact finder, not the target of assassins. "I won't lie to you," Thomas said. "Yes, Snotzenexer will likely try to kill us. In fact, he has tried many times already. That is why we have to be careful. We can't broadcast these images across the net. The public would lynch us before Snotzenexer got the chance. We need to attack him in such a way that his beloved followers will believe us.

"I have thought of several avenues to peruse, but until now have not had an outlet. Until now we have not had a way to get our message across to the public."

Borrel swallowed hard, realizing where he would enter the picture. "I can't broadcast this on our station. They are getting ready broadcast the Snotzenexer Documentary. I don't think they are looking for a counter point right now."

"I don't want to finger your broadcast company as the source of the information. That would give Snotzenexer a target at which he could lash out. No, I was thinking more about a private news bulletin. A sort of gossip column we could get out on data cards."

Borrel started to loose the fearful look in his eye as Thomas explained his idea. "Your looking for a tabloid outlet that would be willing to publish this story?"

"Not this story," Thomas answered, referring to the asteroids, "and not an established tabloid. We could publish something that is new. Established publications will only attracted established readers. We need to reach everyone."

"You want to submit an independent publication into the net's tabloid mainstream?"

"Not the tabloid mainstream, but the news mainstream."

"It will get rejected," Borrel argued.

"Not the initial submission," Thomas countered. "Depending on the public's reaction to it, it will probably get canceled or banished to the tabloid distribution centers, but its initial submission into the news mainstream will give the readers and the media a slight pause. The submission will tell them that the authors of the anonymous publication believe it to be news worthy and not mere gossip. Besides, we won't start with anything juicy, just irrefutable facts. Perhaps it will stay in the news net for a while before Snotzenexer can have it removed."

Borrel was nodding slowly, his earlier fright turning into a smile. "You just need a way to get into the net and then a formal way to submit a publication."

"Can you help us?" Leia asked.

"I believe I can."

Chapter 4 "New Assignments"

The tension around the table was thick as Jill Sanson spoke. "Captain Collins, do you have a report on morale?"

"I do," the middle aged Republic captain said evenly. He paused, looking around at the four other men sitting at the table. They each exchanged inconspicuous nods, transmitting silent affirmations that Collins should report a fabricated evaluation. "Morale is not good," he started bluntly, letting Admiral Sanson absorb the lie.

Sanson was not fooled. She had a good read on the pulse of the Republic Navy's morale and knew it to be better than it had been since the defeat of Thrawn. It was with great interest that Sanson listened to Collins' report.

"There are many fights breaking out between the Imperial defectors and the Republic officers. There is a constant fear - totally unsubstantiated," he threw in with a semi-sarcastic twitch of his mouth, "that the defectors wish to rebel and take over the fleet."

Sanson had many rebuttals to this comment, regardless of its truthful ring. Why would the men wish to rebel when they already have their former Admiral in command? What would they gain from dividing the Navy in half? Would not the Imperial defectors yearn for peace after decades of fighting? Sanson knew these Republic officers under her command wanted her to argue, opening a door for them to dredge up more complaints. She remained silent.

"The men report widespread racism amongst the defectors and blatant insubordination towards high-ranking alien officers." Sanson looked briefly at Captain Allenkar, a Calamarian sitting at the table. She was not used to reading emotions from aliens, and if the Captain was showing any anger with regard to this report, Sanson could not tell.

"The men need some sort of assurance that this instability will not result in chaos. We've been talking," Collins looked around the table at his fellow Republic captains, "and we think what this navy needs is a joint command."

Sanson smiled thinly at the comment. She was very aware that she was sorely outnumbered in this room. She also took careful notice of the language Collins had used to describe the Republic officers. He had used the word "men" to describe the navy time and time again. Sanson was aware more than most that if you removed the Imperial defectors from the navy, it would 40% female.

The whole report had been carefully given to draw a distinct line between Sanson and the rest of the commanders. The borders between Imperial and Republic, human and alien, and even men and women, were placed before her so she would know why she needed to relinquish her command.

Collins had finished his presentation and no one at the table was going to speak until Sanson addressed his report. The female admiral took a brief pause before replying. She looked at the officers, wondering whom they had chosen to join her in command. Though Collins was the group's spokesman, Captain Gencron was the most capable commander at the table.

"Don't you think that two Admirals would only divide the navy more?" she asked the expected concern.

"Does the fact that we have several hundred senators in our government's ruling body divide the people?" Captain Yun, a deeply tanned man from the exotic world of Trom, asked rhetorically. "It is a simple fact that every officer in the navy wishes representation."

"By your statement you not only claim that the navy is divided, but you wish to keep it so by creating two factions. Factions which you already claim are at each other's throats." Sanson had a direction she wished to take this conversation and the quickest route there was through injuring the captains' male pride. "Besides, don't you think the most qualified, capable individual should have the highest position in military? By expanding the command for the sake of political correctness, you introduce the possibility of less qualified personnel obtaining positions of authority."

"Are you saying that you are a better military commander than we are?" the hotheaded Captain Dwenqr said. The stout captain should have been an Imperial. His short temper and brutal methods of war would have made him very successful under the Emperor.

Ever since Sanson's entrance into the public spotlight, there had always been a playful bet between her and a group Republic senators wishing a rematch of military strategy. Sanson had willingly debated Imperial tactics versus Republic tactics at countless senatorial balls and galas. The senators had always claimed that Imperial tactics lacked actual strategy and simply relied on brute force. Sanson countered that the only Imperial strategy the senators were aware of was that of inept commanders.

"I am," Sanson replied.

After Wedge Antilles had been accused of treason and his rank stripped from him, the Republic was in need of a new Admiral. Captain Perry Tremon, had been Wedge's planned successor, but he had been found guilty along with Wedge, and there was no obvious choice among the remaining captains. The senate had voted, and with Snotzenexer's endorsement, Sanson won easily. There was a little hesitation at appointing a recent defector to such a high ranking position, but Snotzenexer had claimed that it would be the ultimate demonstration that the two long fighting governments were finally willing to make the past the past and put their differences behind them.

The Republic captains looked at each other, unable to believe that Sanson had just so bluntly claimed to be their superior. All notions of putting that challenge to a vote seemed ludicrous because Sanson had been appointed by a popular vote. The only avenue left for challenge was clear.

"Are you willing to put that claim to the test?" Collins asked carefully, worried the Admiral might say yes.

"What are you asking?" Sanson responded just as carefully.

"A test of military command skill," Collins replied.

"I hardly think that military command of the galaxy's largest navy should be put up for grabs, going to the winner of a game," Sanson said.

"It's hardly up for grabs," Captain Gencron argued. This was the only captain that Sanson in any way respected. If by some miracle, she lost this upcoming game, and Gencron was appointed Admiral, she would be able to cope. He would probably even accept co-Admiral status. "We are all equally qualified to lead this military. Besides we are at a time of peace and rebuilding, not a time of impending war where an unchanging command is important. You said yourself that the most qualified individual should lead the Republic Navy. We wish to make sure that is so."

"What kind of test?" Sanson asked, allowing a hint of curiosity to creep into her voice.

"A scrimmage," Collins said. "A simulated battle between recently united sides. We took incredible losses in the Danzig battle almost a year ago and have many new recruits. Most of these men have never seen military action of any kind. I'm sure your own men have grown dull after years of hiding and would also benefit from a few war games."

"So it would be all of you and your ships against me and mine. I hope you are not too out of touch with our situation to realize that I will be put at an incredible disadvantage."

"I'm afraid it is you who are out of touch, Admiral," Captain Allenkar spoke for the first time. "Though we have many more ships than you, we do not have the personnel to sufficiently staff them for battle, even if it is only a simulated one. I'm sure after you look at the numbers, you will find that both sides will be practically equal in firepower."

Sanson had already looked at the numbers. She and her husband had poured over all of the possibilities and had come up with numerous effective battle strategies. Sanson had always taken the back seat to her husband when it came to strategy and tactics. Snotzenexer had planned their rise to power, and Sanson had had little input into the matter. Now, however, Snotzenexer had helped with the initial planning but professed that he had too many other traps and snares to rig and monitor and could not be intimately involved in the upcoming war games.

They both realized that Snotzenexer had a superior intellect, but they both also realized that when it came to military strategy, Sanson was nipping closely at her husband's heels. Sanson had accepted the responsibility eagerly, and with only minor suggestions from Snotzenexer had plotted out the fall of the Republic Navy. She would need her husband's help to pick up the pieces and put them back together exactly how they wanted them, but she would take great joy in being the prime mover in the demolition.

Sanson did well to hide her smile as she accepted the terms put forth by the Republic captains. If the captains had not been so eager to prove themselves to a galaxy that had turned against them in favor of two newcomers, they might have questioned Sanson's willingness to go along with their idea. The Republic Admiral had nothing to gain from this scrimmage and everything to loose. She already held the support of the senate and had proven her skills in command through many acts against her former brethren as she had begun to clean out the remnants of the Empire, which were causing havoc on the edges of Republic space.

Sanson obviously had everything to loose, for if she did not emerge victorious, she would no longer hold command of the military. Even though Captain Gencron had respect for her, the chances that he would let her keep even a small portion of her former authority with the pressures of his fellow captains, were slim.

The military meeting was adjourned with a slight flourish as the five Republic captains rushed out of the room to begin preparing for the ultimate test. Sanson remained in her chair at the head of the table long after the room had cleared. She could not help but laugh at the men's stupidity. They would not win, and many of them would die in the upcoming war games, yet she was going to be able to emerge from the incident as innocent as she had been when she entered, with all the guilt of the tragedy falling on the six men who had orchestrated the event.

Sanson would have stayed in the silent room indefinitely, reveling in her success, but her baby monitor attached to her waist went off. Her infant son had just woken up and it was time for little David Snotzenexer's afternoon meal.

***

"What?! Eranadis Palpatine was outraged at his boss's suggestion.

"I said your first assignment will be that of a bodyguard." The chief pretended not to notice Eran's outrage at the humbling assignment. "Be happy the Association is willing to take you back at all. Frankly I do not know why they have. Since President Snotzenexer's rise to power, this system has been receiving so much attention. Organized crime has been more cautious than usual."

"Is that why I'm getting a baby-sitting job?"

"No, this is definitely a reprimand." The chief paused long enough to appreciate Eran's shock at the blunt statement. "We asked you to take a long vacation, and you did. Now if you want to start back with us again, you're going to need to climb back up the ladder."

"I need to earn my stripes! Is that what you're telling me? I was the best operative the Association ever had and still am. This is ridiculous." Eran had half a mind to storm out of the office and take up smuggling. A stupid idea, considering his lack of skill at piloting. Besides, with Snotzenexer's hold on the galactic trade market, it was hard for any entrepreneur to start up, much less a trader.

Eran took a deep calming breath. He had come back to the Association for one real reason. He had plenty of money, and only needed work to keep from being bored. The reason he had chosen his old employers was because it was a government run organization. The government in the Varion system was getting a lot of attention as the birthplace of Snotzenexer's political career. If Eran wanted access to Snotzenexer or those close to him, this was the best place to start.

"What is the job?" Eran asked, defeated.

"You should like this one. The client is a woman, and a rich one at that. Her name is Sandie Hollins."

"THE Sandie Hollins?!" Eran asked, not believing his fortune.

"No," the chief replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "She's only 'A' Sandie Hollins. She's having herself cloned for tax reasons. Yes, you moron, THE Sandie Hollins, acting president of the VIB."

The acting president of the Varion Imperial Bank, Eran thought, you can't get much closer to Snotzenexer than that. "What does she need protection from?" Eran asked, feeling there had to be a catch to a job this lucky.

"You've got me, buddy. I think everyone sees her as a hero, sort of like an extension of Snotzenexer himself. No one would gain from an assassination. But hey, I'm not going to look a gift rancor in the mouth. She's offering 3000 credits a day for an armed guard that can remain inconspicuous."

Eran was beginning to realize that while the title of this job was meant to downgrade his ego, in reality, this was a job for which the Association should use their best man. The normal fee for an armed bodyguard was anywhere from 100 to 1000 credits a day, depending on the availability of the client to outside attackers. Politicians who made numerous public appearances were usually protected for around 750 a day. Rich businessmen who were scared of jealous competitors were the ones down in the 100 to 250 range.

For someone to pay 3000 credits a day to protect themselves when no likely attacker existed was ludicrous. Of course since the client was Snotzenexer's financial representative, the Association had to take the job very seriously. Also the fact that Sandie had requested an inconspicuous guard meant the Association could not just use one of their two-meter tall, 100-kilogram brutes of which they had an endless supply. This job also needed someone who was good at concealing weapons, and Eran's ability to keep his two "borrowed" lightsabers hidden from countless security systems in the past few months was something he took great pride in.

"When do I start?" Eran asked, suddenly excited to begin his baby-sitting job.

"How quickly can you find your way to Iom," the chief responded.

"Can I get a company ship?"

The chief sighed, "You know, with as much as we pay you, it wouldn't hurt you to pick up a transport. Go on over to accounting and Danna will sign you out a ship. We better get it back this time."

Eran gave a reassuring wink to his boss and left the office, eager to get started on his new job.

***

Ghent walked into the restaurant feeling suddenly underdressed. All of the staff and most of the patrons were wearing formal attire. He was dressed in a smart suit made from material that cost more per meter than the most expensive meal in the restaurant. His tie was colorful, but not too loud.

"Sir," the hostess said inquisitively, drawing Ghent away from his contemplation, "do you have a reservation?"

"I'm meeting someone here. His name is Cog Fardin."

"You must be Quintil Harpinge," She said, grabbing a menu pad. "Follow me."

Coruscant had been very segregated under Imperial Rule, and even though those times were over two dozen years in the past, society still had not changed much. The restaurant was divided into a human section and an alien section. While both sections were equally equipped with all the amenities offered by the ten star restaurant, there was still a distinction.

Cog Fardin was sitting by a singled out table in the alien section. The table was obviously reserved for the restaurant's more distinguished alien guests. Cog watched Ghent walk toward the table as the man eyed the section he was entering. Ghent knew he was under surveillance and made sure to keep his emotions from showing as he watched all manner of aliens devouring all manner of delicacies, some cooked, some still moving.

Cog greeted Ghent with a toothy smile and a firm handshake as he sat down at the table. "Can I start you with something to drink, sir? Or maybe an appetizer?"

Ghent looked at the hostess, realizing he was going to have to make an impression on his potential employer. "I'll have a glass of yovein port and a cup of mating colns."

The hostess did her best to hide her surprise at the unusual appetizer. "Your waitress today will be Suelly, and she'll be by shortly with your order." With that she left.

"Colns," Cog said thoughtfully, "a Twi'lek delicacy." The head of the Trade Federation truly wondered if Ghent would have ordered them if he were dinning with someone else.

"I did some work for a Twi'lek owned company back in the Corporate Sector and afterwards they took me to dinner. I was bet I couldn't eat a pair. It was actually a very pleasant sensation."

"Sensation is a rather tame word to describe the experience of a really good pair of colns," Cog reprimanded. "It's more like a sensual euphoria."

True to the hostess' word, Suelly the waitress arrived with the drink and colns, though she hesitated when she saw that a human had ordered the crustaceans when a Twi'lek was also sitting at the table. She shrugged her shoulders and set the small cup in front of Ghent and left them to look at their menus.

There were ten colns in the cup with a divider in the middle separating the females from the males. They looked like stubby worms as they moved over each other. Ghent slid the divider down slowly, giving the top pair of colns access to each other. When they mated, they curled up like two pieces of macaroni, joining at the ends to form a small hoop. As Ghent picked up the mating pair, he tried to imagine it was just a breath saver. He popped it into his mouth and waited.

The mating process of the small creatures along with the warmth of Ghent's mouth caused the creatures to excrete a very strong fluid. Ghent was initially repulsed by the flavor, but the shock wore of quickly, and he found it to be suddenly very intoxicating. He swirled the small, shelled hoop about with his tongue, filling his entire mouth with the flavor until the creatures were spent. Ghent quickly swallowed the colns and chased them down with a sip of his wine.

"You do not chew them?" Cog asked inquisitively.

"Should I?" Ghent asked, not liking the idea very much.

"You're only getting half of the experience. Sure they taste great when they're in the throws of love making, but in death they're twice as stimulating. Their tiny teeth and claws grip onto your tongue like leeches, their bodies so recently in ecstasy and now in agony."

Ghent pushed the cup towards his interviewee, suddenly not so hungry. "Be my guest," he said.

Cog did, popping two of the pairs in his mouth. Ghent watched in horror as the Twi'lek crunched down on the four colns. Cog's lips parted do to the waves of euphoria that swept over him, and Ghent could see the small creatures writhing in agony behind the Twi'lek's clenched teeth.

Cog quickly finished off the remaining two pairs and then got down to business. "How did you hear of this opportunity?" Cog asked.

"A friend of a friend of a friend of a business associate," Ghent responded discretely.

Cog nodded, understanding his wish to keep his network secret. It was not really how he had heard about the job, only that he had and was here now. "I've researched you quite heavily after your request two days ago to meet. Quintil Harpinge, a self made multi-billionare in the software industry, not such an easy task." Cog looked at Ghent expectantly, but since he had not asked a question, Ghent did not offer an answer.

"The reports I've read said that almost all of your business dealt with tax computation software. I'm sure you realize that most of the work you'd be doing for me is more along the lines of market analyzing and scheduling." Again no question asked and no answer given. Cog liked this man. He was worth over 500 billion and was only about 40 standard years old. Still, he had the patience and caution of a man twice his age. "Do you feel you would have difficulty in adapting to a different system?"

The waitress came back, interrupting the conversation. Cog ordered his usual (whatever that was), while Ghent still had not looked at his menu pad. Ghent ordered a blackened 300-gram cut of Tolarian prime rib, steamed Isnid corn, and a medium portion of mashed gorgans. The waitress took their menu pads and replaced them with salads.

Ghent poured dressing over the salad as he answered the question. "The system will not be different," he said, getting an odd look from the Twi'lek, who had declined the salad. "If I am not mistaken, you are looking for someone to streamline your current setup to allow the addition of a 30% increase in expected traffic. If I were to tackle this job, my idea would not be to streamline the current system as much as I would try to redesign it using the existing hardware."

Ghent paused as he stuffed a forkful of greens in his mouth. "I am a software designer and programmer. I've researched you as well. You are not a programmer. You have a very impressive history of setting up elaborate financial systems, whether they be infant stock markets or commercial transportation networks. In all that you no doubt hired programmers to write code to execute your desires. The code then becomes the system. Any change to the system requires an alteration to the code.

"In your case, since I did not write the code and am not familiar with the logic used to develop it, I will not be able to streamline it. As I rewrite the code, I will be able to streamline the process in the same motion."

"I do not have the time or money to allow you to rewrite the entire system code," Cog said quite forwardly, no anger in his voice.

"Nor will you need it. You asked me if I would have a problem changing from a taxation system to a marketing system, and I told you they were the same system. Once you strip away all of the fluff, all we are talking about are numbers. Whether the numbers represent light years or gross national product, market price or tax refunds, they are all still just numbers. I have a system that I've been working with for about fifteen years and can write it forwards and backwards before most people can sign their name.

"My system handles numbers, pure and simple. All I will ask for is about 500,000 credits to hire several associates I have worked with in the past, and I will have your system overhauled in less than two weeks without disrupting the current system."

"Two weeks?!" Cog said, thinking the idea ridiculous. "Will you not sleep at all?"

"I will sleep, but not much. In order to get it done, though, I will need all barriers removed. I can not afford to be audited or document my activity. I must have no disruptions and the best hardware available on the market today. I will slip that in under the 500,000 credits. I do not want to have to give daily updates, and I will explain nothing of what I do until I am done."

Cog thought this man was being rather presumptuous. "Why should I agree to this?"

"Two reasons. I am the only person out there who can do this for you. I've worked with or competed against every advanced computer mind out there, and I will stand by my claim to be the best. The second is that I can give you increased capacity with a reduction in cost, making you a very rich man. Anyone else will give you increased capacity with increased cost, keeping you profit margin right where it is."

"How can you give me a reduction in cost with an increased capacity?"

"By automating everything that can be automated, I will eliminate the need of employees and the office space required to hold them."

"But you can not automate everything, we've tried. There are too many price checks and negotiations that need to-"

"I told you earlier that if I take this job, the only way I will be able to work effectively is to not have to explain my technique or procedures to anyone. This is why."

Despite Ghent's disrespectful attitude, Cog like the confident man. The meals arrived and the two of them began eating. "You realize that I'm putting my future in your hands," Cog said, using language to imply that he was indeed going to give the job to Ghent.

"Not really. It's more like you're putting the future of the Republic and President Snotzenexer's administration in my hands."

Cog nearly choked on his meat. The man was right. He only hoped he was doing the right thing.

Chapter 5 "The Great Pyramids"

Faye Badden cursed her employers at the Porvian Historic Museum. Why did they have to choose her? There were plenty of other archeologists that would have loved to come out into the middle of the dessert to look at a couple piles of rock. Not her, though. She was far more interested in jungle tribes and supernatural gods. The artifacts she had picked up five years ago deep in the jungles of Ahgst had really excited her. The tales of the supernatural creatures and mystic powers that surrounded the small idols she had found gave her a rush. She had held in her hands a piece of stone that, a thousand years earlier had brought unimaginable power to whoever possessed it along with the knowledge to use it. That was the kind of thing she liked to do.

Faye walked out of her tent and into the scorching, hot sun. The wind was mild today, and she did not need all of the wraps she usually wore to keep the sand off. Sure, she thought as she looked at landscape in front of her, the piles of rocks are awful, darn symmetric and awful, darn tall, but they were still just rock.

They should have an engineer here, she thought, not an archeologist. The pyramids were located in the heart of the Tarran dessert, well over 3000 kilometers from the nearest edge of the wasteland. Nobody lived more than a few dozen kilometers into the sand covered region for there was no water to be found anywhere. It was a small wonder then that seven years ago, when one of the guys down at NSADC (National Space Awareness Division of Callan) got bored looking up and looked down for a couple hours, the planet of Bersd got its first glimpse of the pyramids. No one had paid the dessert any attention, figuring it was just a big waste of land. Now satellites were buzzing over the Tarran Dessert with regular frequency, wondering what five stone pyramids big enough to be seen from space were doing in the middle of nowhere.

Faye had not been with the museum when they had sent their first team out here. That expedition had been very short. Five of the eight members of the team were killed in the first week. There had been no water, sandstorms every other day, and a heat that no one had been prepared for.

The public at large suggested that the museum and all other interested parties simply forget about the pyramids. The reasons for such views were mixed. The most popular reason, though, was fear. It was obvious that these structures were incredibly massive, and although they were not the tallest structures on the planet, they were by far the most awe-inspiring. The thing that scared most people was that there was no way of knowing how long they had existed, and no one could explain how they had been built.

It was plain from the first failed attempt by the museum, that survival in the heart of the Tarran dessert was not something that happened easily. How had anyone managed to build such enormous structures in those conditions? Most people wondered if the mechanical equipment existed now to build the structures, much less a thousand years or so ago, when the structures were guessed to have been built. There was no water available for the bricks that made up the pyramids. There were no food sources at all. If they were built by hand by some primitive culture, it would have taken thousands of people hundreds of years to build just one of the five structures, and that still did not explain how any of them survived to complete the project.

Faye held great respect for the pyramids, but her initial interest had died quickly. She enjoyed looking at them from a nearby dune in the cool of night. They were constructed very symmetrically with four smaller pyramids in a square and the largest one in the middle. The setting sun seemed to make them glow, as if they contained some magical power. All attempts at finding a door into the pyramids had failed, and they were only a couple days from trying to blast into one of the smaller ones.

A slight breeze picked up, and Faye drew her loose clothes about her. The wind grew stronger, causing the woman to look around her. She did not see the normal swirls of sand that usually accompanied the gusts of wind common to this dessert. Instead, this wind seemed to be very isolated to her area.

The wind was getting very strong now, and Faye had a feeling it was coming from above her. She looked up, but he blazing sun made her squint. Still, she could not see any ship, and none was due for another day. Soon the wind was so strong that others began to notice it. The sound was definitely that of a ship landing but it sounded to be at least ten times larger than the normal hovercopters that brought food, water, and supplies.

The sound and wind peaked, and Faye watched in amazement as three distinct depressions in the sand formed directly beneath the noise and only a dozen meters from where she was standing. A small crowd began to join Faye as the engine noise started to subside and the depressions hardened considerably under the weight of the invisible ship.

It was all over in a matter of seconds. Stillness reigned supreme among the group of about six Bersdens that gathered around the depressions. There were a couple religious fanatics that had been drawn to these mysterious pyramids and they were chanting slowly.

The cloaked Jade's Fire remained inactive for a few minutes while the occupants inside decided what to do about the crowd outside. "What will they think?" Wedge asked.

Anakin, Bep Fritz, and Vince Trimpo just shrugged their shoulders. Wedge had decided to bring along the two remaining members of the 185th because he figured they would be an excellent judge of any fighters they might find.

"Let's get this over with," Anakin finally said and walked over to the outer hatch, waiting for Wedge to activate the door.

The hatch to the ship opened, and the spectators saw a man in a sandy cloak standing in what looked like a door to another dimension. Anakin did not normally wear his Jedi robes, but figured them appropriate given the conditions of their visit. As Anakin stepped out into the sunlight, his light colored coat nearly glowed in the brilliance, while the dark lining kept his face shrouded in shadows.

The average Bersden is only about 1.6 meters tall and having Vince and Bep, both of whom were over two meters, trailing Anakin out of the ship was a bad idea. Seeing a radiant figure emerge from aa extra-dimensional portal followed by two giants, was not very comforting. Those Bersdens who had been chanting, now fell prostrate before the visitors. Everyone else other than Faye ran in fear.

Faye was awe struck by the sight, but was also a scientist ruled by common sense. She had witnessed the entire landing of the invisible ship, while most of the spectators had only experienced the gale wind at the end. While cloak technology was still a long way off for this civilization, Faye could imagine its existence.

The idea that these men could also be from another planet was not that far-fetched. Within the past 20 years, the planet's communication systems had become advanced enough to pick up radio chatter from beyond their atmosphere. Everyone had agreed that it would only be a matter of time before they left Bersd in search of life, or until life came to them.

Anakin, Vince, and Bep were now standing on the sand in front of Faye and the two worshipful natives, while Wedge was still coming down the ramp, making sure it would close after he had fully exited. Faye could see that they were alien. Something about their faces disturbed her. At a distance in the bright sun they might look normal, but as they got closer she could see something was wrong with them. Their eyes were a little too close together. Their skin was not quite green enough. Their mouths seemed to have only one row of teeth

"What on Bersd are you doing here?!" she found herself saying. The two kneeling members of the archeological team looked back at her with awe, and then turned their faces to Anakin to see his reaction.

The young Jedi smiled. The Republic probe in orbit over the planet had recorded enough of the Bersd culture to identify dozens of languages. Linguistic droids had then been able to decipher the languages and anyone could learn them if they wanted. Anakin had no idea which language they would encounter, so he had been forced to become familiar with all of them. Fortunately, he was the most gifted Jedi talent in the galaxy, and the languages did not present him with a problem.

"Don't worry," Anakin said in a calming tone, "we mean you no harm. We are here merely to learn."

"You're here for the pyramids then?" Faye asked frankly. It was now very obvious these men were not gods, and they appeared to carry no weapons. "Did you build them?"

Anakin shook his head. "We did not. We are here to see if we can find out who did." Anakin looked over at the great structures. Even in orbit, Anakin could feel the pulse of Dark power coming from them, and now there could be no mistake.

Faye nodded, looking over her shoulder to see what had become of her associates. She had suspected that the military had placed a few operatives in the group of scientists to keep a close eye on the proceedings, and now as she saw some of the scared would-be archeologists talking into military communicators, she knew this encounter would get violent before long.

"I'm afraid some of my people will not take kindly to your arrival."

"That is to be expected," Anakin replied. "All the more reason we should hurry."

Faye saw that these men were not threats and she nodded. "This way," she said and turned away from the invisible ship and began walking down the rows of tents towards the base of the mighty pyramids.

People ducked in and out of their tents as they passed. Wedge and the two members of the 185th had not understood a word of Anakin's conversation, but they trusted the Jedi enough to follow without question.

Right before the group made it to the roped off area that designated the protected archeological site, two men jumped out of their tents with automatic weapons pointed at the visitors.

"You will go no further!" one of them commanded. "You will wait here until reinforcements arrive and be taken into custody until which time we feel that you are no longer a threat."

Wedge desperately fought the urge to pull his concealed blaster. He understood that these men posed no threat to someone of Anakin's skill but still did not feel comfortable being unarmed in a potential battle situation.

"Cawrq, Rwents," Faye said sharply, addressing the two men, "these visitors are here in peace. They are on a quest for knowledge. If you were a true scientist you would understand that."

Rwents grunted. "If I was visiting another planet and wished to scout out its weaknesses before invasion, I would also come under a guise of peace."

"True," Anakin spoke up, "but would you land in the middle of the dessert to look at some stone pyramids."

The two military men had not heard Anakin talk before, and the fact that he knew their language was very shocking. In the moment of confusion, Anakin acted. With a wave of his hand, he sent the two weapons flying out of the men's hands. As they scrambled for a second gun holstered at their hips, the Jedi lifted them into the air with the Force and tossed them gently into the top of the nearby tent. The cloth structure collapsed, entangling the attackers and giving the four visitors a chance to move on.

Faye was utterly shocked at the display, wondering if she was not being a bit too trusting. Anakin stepped past her, sorry that he had to use such an obvious display of power to get past the men, but he sensed the coming aircraft of the reinforcements and knew he had to hurry.

"Let's go," Anakin said in Basic to his companions. "The local military will be here soon." The three secondary members of the party nodded and followed the Jedi as he walked forward quickly.

They were soon between two of the smaller pyramids and directly in front of the largest one.

"They look like ancient tombs for extinct gods," Vince said when he managed to catch his breath.

Anakin looked back at the young pilot with some respect and grinned. "A very accurate description, let's only hope they are extinct." Anakin was still smiling when he turned back to the pyramid in front of him. He raised his arms and everything became deathly still.

Faye was only now catching up to the foursome, and the two disarmed men behind her were just getting out of their tangled tent. All three of the natives stopped cold as they felt the buzz in the air. It felt like what you might expect to experience right before being struck by lightning. The air felt electric and powerful.

The three nearest onlookers could hear Anakin humming something to himself and could see his body swaying slowly as he threw himself into an intense trance. Soon the humming became too loud to just be coming from the Jedi, and the three men turned their attention to the huge pyramid in front of them. The perfectly shaped geometrical figure stood 150 meters high, and its base measured 240 meters along each side. The entire structure was vibrating, causing the enormous amounts of sand it had accumulated over the years to flow off it like giant avalanches of snow. Soon the mountain of rock was clean and the fine cut of each stone was visible, showing off its beautiful construction.

The vibration increased ten-fold now. Small cracks began to form in the huge structure along each of its diagonals. The top 25 meters of the pyramid began to separate slightly from the base and cracks began to appear in each of the faces, splitting the top into four sections. Each of these sections moved further and further apart until they began to descend down the tracks created along the pyramid's edges.

Each piece of the top moved down toward the ground, opening a large, square hole in the top of the mountain. Directly in front of them, a large section of the rock face began to move. When the four sections of the top were 10 meters from the ground, the section of the face began to descend also, moving out as it did, creating a ramp towards the four visitors.

When the movement was complete and Anakin lowered his arms, the pyramid looked totally transformed. The top was open and large enough for a medium sized freighter to fly into. The front of the pyramid behind the slab that had slid down was made of metal and clearly held a door to the inside of the Sith stronghold. The slab that had slid down had created a very even set of stairs for the guests to climb.

"Come," Anakin commanded, a slight strain evident in his voice. The four men moved up the stairs in silence, the three spectators still in awe of what they had seen. Faye and her two gun-happy friends did not dare follow. 

"How did you open this up?" Wedge asked as they climbed the stairs. "You didn't use the Dark Side, did you?"

"There is no Dark Side of the Force," Anakin answered, "only Dark Side of the Force users. It is all a matter of whether you fill you mind with love or with hate." Anakin paused in front of the door at the top of the stairs. He concentrated for a moment, and the door slid open, releasing a very dry gust of air.

Inside the stronghold, the visitors saw that while the outside of the top of the pyramid had opened, there were still two heavy durasteel doors keeping the sun (and everything else) out. The interior of the structure looked much like a room in a space ship. There were clean metal walls and a few computer screens with no furniture, giving the entry way to the stronghold an eerie quality this deep into a barren wasteland.

The four men made their way to a turbo lift that had not been used in ages. It opened like it was brand new and was soon whisking its occupants deep into the bowels of the planet.

"Anakin," Vince spoke with respect, "it seems we are traveling well past the surface of the dessert. Is there nothing in the base of the pyramid of any value?"

"The base and the levels immediately below it contain endless stone passageways filled with cobwebs and booby traps and small tombs containing rotting corpses. They are only there to keep archeologists and scientists occupied while the real treasures of this stronghold remain hidden from curious intruders."

"How do you know this?" Bep asked, sharing the fears of his commanding officer that Anakin might be walking a very tight rope.

"This stronghold was sealed by one Sith, but he made its contents available to any of his brethren who might come looking for it. Because of that, he left instructions and information buried in the Force. It was difficult to work past the Dark emotions surrounding this place. A Sith would have embraced those emotions and been welcomed into the pyramid's secrets. I had to fight through them, but now I too have access to all of the Force records left behind."

The lift slowed down and stopped, opening its doors into another dry, stale room. This room was much different than before. It was made of dirt and stone, cobwebs hung about as abundant and thick as banners in a castle. The light was low, and the recesses of the large room could not be readily seen. Wedge activated a glow rod, and the three uniformed members of the party were frozen in fear. The room was filled with sarcophagi as far as the eye could see.

The turbolift was in the middle of the square room, and the stunned men walked slowly around the lift, looking at row after row of the burial caskets, finally seeing the outer walls of the room after at least a dozen rows. "There must be over a thousand of them," Bep said in a frightened whisper.

"There are only 500," Anakin said.

"Five hundred twelve," Vince dared to correct the Jedi, having done some quick row counting and multiplication in his head.

Anakin was never wrong with numbers, and his three friends watched as his eyes rolled back in his head as if accessing some hidden file in his mind. After a while, he smiled. "Apparently our Sith wasn't very good at counting."

Vince laughed and the young engineer began walking around the room making sure of his count and trying to figure out what was so special about the coffins.

"What is in them?" Wedge asked, growing excited at the prospect of obtaining advanced Imperial weapons.

Without a word, Anakin walked up to the nearest burial container and unceremoniously waved the lid open. The three onlookers stepped back when the contents were revealed. A mummy wrapped in very old, white ribbons stood stoically in the vertical coffin. The wrappings about the dead thing began to unravel, slowly at first, but with more vigor as Anakin fell into the Force. The body underneath was uncovered in sections, but nothing could be seen behind the flurry of ribbons until the task was completed.

Instead of a rotting corpse, something far more amazing stood in the mummy's place. "What in the..." Wedge started, examining what was truly within the coffins.

Wedge thought he knew what they were, but did not want to be right. They were large - almost 2.25 meters tall - mechanical exoskeletons shaped similarly to gray stormtroopers. Attached to both arms were mechanical weapons that could be interchanged with a variety of attachments. "Dark Troopers." Wedge finally admitted.

"What are we going to do with them all?" Vince asked, thinking he already knew the answer.

"Nothing," Anakin said solemnly, a deep chill evident in his voice. While the mechanical nightmares were frightening to look at, they were far worse when analyzed with the Force. The Young Jedi felt like he was surrounded by sleeping dragons, each of them with one eye half open, ready to wake up and consume him if he took one more step toward their hoarded treasure.

"Why can't we use them?" Bep asked.

"Remember how I said that there was no Dark Side of the Force, only the Dark Side of the Force users." Anakin motioned his arm to all the sarcophagi around him. "These Dark Troopers were cloned to be an extension of their controlling Sith's mind. They were created without a soul, using microchips and mechanics to take its place. Their minds are only capable of understanding hate and destruction. There is no way they would function correctly under my or even Uncle Luke's guidance. Ideas of love and compassion would probably short circuit their logic systems."

"Are there other weapons here we can use?" Bep asked, glad that the scary Dark Troopers would not be part of their future plans.

"Through there," Anakin pointed his hand and a section of the wall, not covered with sarcophagi opened, revealing another room beyond. Wedge, Vince, and Bep walked quickly between the rows of coffins and through the door in the wall. The outer room was round, roughly the size of the base of the pyramid above them and surrounded the smaller room they had just exited the same way that room had surrounded the turbolift.

The perimeter of the room was lined with TIE fighters and Interceptors. Before making any claims of how many there appeared to be, Bep waited for Vince's exact count. "Ninety-six of them, 24 Interceptors and 72 fighters."

In addition to the TIE's, several dozen turbo laser mounts were arranged along the inner wall. The laser howitzers were huge, and the energy source and targeting system looked far more advanced than what the Republic was currently using.

Bep's eyes were drawn back to the fighters. "Those aren't normal TIE's," Bep pointed out quickly. He and Vince had probably seen more TIE fighters up close than anyone else in the Republic other than Jon Poncho, their missing comrade. While they looked a whole lot more familiar as orange, red, and yellow balls of flame, these ships in front of them were still obviously different from the normal TIE. Even after working under Sanson to build a more advanced TIE, these crafts looked far more advanced than any other Imperial craft either 185th member had ever seen before.

"V-38's," Wedge said calmly, trying to keep his excitement from showing.

"Very funny," Vince said, turning to look and see that his Admiral was not showing an expression one normally likens to joking. "You're serious?"

For once Anakin was confused. The Sith had left behind an inventory of what was in the stockhold, but no explanation on what was so special about the fighters. Wedge turned to Anakin. "V-38's are a cloaked TIE." Wedge started to say more but realized he probably had the galaxy's expert on the subject present and he might as well let him do the honors.

"Lieutenant?" Wedge turned toward Vince for explanation.

"Thank-you, sir. A cloaking device erects a shield that hides an object from sensory or optical detection. It is able to bend light and all other waves around the shield, much like water flowing around a rock. While this makes the object totally invisible to any observers, it also leaves the object inside the shield in the dark. There have been numerous attempts to try and fix this problem, but nothing has ever made it past the drawing board.

"Thrawn was able to use them effectively because he employed the talents of C'baoth to guide his cloaked pilots, allowing them more input than their blind ships could give them. Pellaeon tried to use a Computerized Combat Predictor to calculate and predict ships' trajectories so that when a ship cloaked, it would still be able to guess where its enemies where. That project failed miserably. Today, no adequate method for incorporating cloaked ships into battle has been shown to be effective. Very few pilots have the skill, or should I say Force ability, to fly a cloaked ship."

"And V-38's?" Anakin asked.

"They are the one exception," Vince continued, sounding like a college professor giving a memorized lecture. "They were designed a long time ago, but have all been wiped out, and the technology went with them. Later attempts at reproducing the fighters have proved futile."

"But how do they work?" Bep asked.

"The V-38's take advantage of the fact that a cloaking shield is spherical. The design was originally intended for TIE fighters but was far more effective on TIE Interceptors. Fighters have very small batteries and rely on their solar panels to absorb energy during a fight. I'm sure you can imagine the problem when you cloak a TIE fighter and rob it of its energy source. An Interceptor has a much larger battery that is comparable to that of an X-Wing or Y-Wing.

"The process involved uses multiple cloaking devices, three in fact, one for each of the wings and one for the central pod. The Imperial designers adjusted the size of the middle shield to perfectly match the central pod and of the outside shields so they did not overlap into the central one. The problem with most ships is that they are not spherical, and in order to cover the entire ship you need a huge shield. Because the shield around the central pod of the V-38's was the same size as the pod, tiny transparent antennas that extended outside of the cloaking shield were attached to the pod. These antennas make up the whole design. Other ships have tried to mimic this technique, but because their ships are not spherical, their antennas have to stick out much too far to get outside the cloak and are then too big, showing up on enemy radar.

"The antennas used on the V-38's were hair thin and transparent but were able to pick up light rays and reproduce a simulated replication of what the pilot would have seen if his ship was not cloaked. They were kind of like periscopes for subships. They were also able to send out weak sensor echoes so the pilot's targeting computer would be able to function. These antennas were made out of a secret material or took advantage of a manufacturing technique that has been lost because every attempt I've ever seen to reproduce them has turned out to be a failure. Most attempts result in antennas that are not only visible on enemy radar, but also do not give the pilot nearly enough information, putting him in a much worse condition than if he were to simply fly uncloaked."

"So the effect is like flying in a simulator?" Bep asked.

"Not entirely," Vince responded. "It's true that the image you see in the cockpit is not as clear as what you would see under normal circumstances, but it still looks very real. It would be similar to if your view panel was a little cloudy. Plus simulators can't reproduce acceleration and momentum like the real thing. I'm sure if you were to fly one, you wouldn't for a moment think you were in a simulator."

"It's great that we have ships now," Anakin said, turning to Wedge. "But what are we going to do for pilots?"

"One thing at a time," Wedge responded. He was just as excited as Vince about the V-38's and had not thought that far in advance.

"If we need pilots, what about those guys?" Bep asked, pointing back to the room with the Dark Troopers. Anakin shuddered.

Vince ignored the continued conversation having immediately gone over to one of the TIE Interceptors after his speech. He was nearly thrown from was feet as the floor shook and dust rained from the ceiling. "What was that?"

"I'd have to guess it's the local authorities," Anakin said with disappointment showing through his voice. "I doubt they are too happy with our arrival."

Anakin looked up at the ceiling, searching with the Force to see if this stronghold had any defensive measures that would not wipe out the entire population around the pyramids. "I'll go up top and have a look," Anakin said. He made his way back to the turbolift and whisked back up to the top of the pyramid. The lift did not stop at the previous entry point but continued up past the double doors and onto the top of the flat pyramid.

Anakin was awed at the military display that was going on around the five pyramids. Tanks and troops had been airlifted into the dessert by huge hovercopters. Those same air vehicles were now circling the collection of stone mountains, all manner of machine guns hanging out of their open doors and several tons of missiles hanging from short wings. The tanks were impressive with massive barrels and thick, steel skeletons. The swarms of troops were racing to set up rocket launchers and more machine gun turrets to battle what ever it was that had arrived on their planet. Jets were streaking through the sky above the pyramids like birds of prey, preparing to spread their hail of destruction on anything that showed itself.

Anakin Solo had shown himself. The anxious military commanders allowed no chance for any type of explanation. As soon as the brightly cloaked man emerged from the top of the largest pyramid, the word was given to open fire. Every machine gun fired. Every other missile and rocket was let loose. The jets strafed the lone figure as they passed by the pyramid at mach speeds. Nothing came close. Everything exploded or was repelled when it came within 20 meters of the powerful Jedi. Anakin could have never hoped to erect such a strong shield on his own with so little notice, but the pyramid had a built in safety measure that was augmented by the Force user it protected. And Anakin was a very impressive Force user.

The hail of ammunition ceased after the short two-second burst to see what kind of destruction they had yielded. Anakin did not waste time giving the army a second chance and quickly disappeared back down into the pyramid.

The three men waiting below had felt the trembling during the brief firing session as the sounds of mass destruction shook the ground above them. The sudden silence scared them even more profoundly and only the return of Anakin shook them from their trance of fear. "It is time we leave."

The four men piled back into the small turbolift and began a trip back up. "Wedge, do you have Mara's remote to her ship?" Anakin asked.

Wedge nodded. "Do you want me to bring it up to the top of the pyramid?"

Anakin shook his head violently. "It'll get blown out of the sky, and Mara will never forgive you. Take it directly into space when I give the word."

"How are we going to get off this dust ball without the ship?" Bep asked.

Anakin did not answer, but waited for the doors of the turbolift to open, revealing what looked like a bridge to a space ship.

Anakin turned to Vince and Bep. "You guys think you can fly this?"

"It's a ship?" Bep asked, not believing his eyes.

"It can fly, but I wouldn't call it a ship. Can you fly it?" Anakin repeated himself.

Bep and Vince walked quickly over to the main controls of the bridge and fiddled with a few of the knobs and switches. The room came to life with blinking lights and small beeps. "I think so." A small seat rose from the floor, and Bep used it. He and Vince took a short while to familiarize themselves with the controls. All the text was written in some ancient Sith language, a course which was not offered at the Republic officer training academy, but they managed to recognize key controls quick enough.

"What are you going to do?" Wedge asked.

"Try to hide the Jade's Fire from the enemy. They might not be able to see it, but trust me, with as much firepower as they have out there, they wouldn't miss. Besides, I half to prep this baby for launch."

As Bep and Vince began to ready the ancient shuttle for launch, the outside of the central pyramid began to undergo more drastic changes. If the planet of Bersd had more than one season, the spectators would have likened the sight to that of a flower in springtime. The sides of the pyramid opened like pedals on a blooming plant, revealing the rigid cone of the huge shuttle underneath. The large outer door appeared as only a tiny hatch on the gigantic missile. As Bep ignited the never before activated thrusters, the ground around the four minor pyramids exploded into geysers of fire, releasing the energy of the rockets. Soldiers scrambled away from the eruptions as the ground could not contain the immense heat from below.

The cone rose slowly into the air, followed closely by the rest of the shuttle as it crept out of its tomb. As they emerged from the pyramid, the huge thrusters incinerated the numerous machines and weapons that were left unattended by the soldiers who were scrambling for cover. The terrific energy hurtled the long shuttle into the atmosphere.

Inside the middle of the shuttle, the men hung on for dear life, as the ride was not exactly smooth. The G-forces were incredible, and it was all Bep and Vince could do to just keep the cone of the rocket pointing up and into space.

The ride became smooth quickly as the air around the rising shuttle became thin and then non-existent. Bep and Vince operated the sensors, located the Jade's Fire, which Wedge had brought into orbit uncloaked, and moved in close enough to dock with the ship. The huge missile dwarfed Mara's ship as it pulled along side. Bep extended a huge docking sleeve toward the cargo hangar of the modified freighter and secured the connection.

The experienced pilot put the shuttle's side thrusters on autopilot so the computer could automatically sense the tension on the docking sleeve and correct any stress on the seal. "Well, gentlemen," Bep said after completing the procedure, "What do we do now?"

"I believe this shuttle has a hyperdrive, though it has no nav com. I'll fly it back to Yavin IV, while you guys go back in Mara's ship. You'll almost definitely beat me home, so you can start preparing to go through our new cargo."

The friends said brief good-byes, loaded into their respective ships, and took off for home.

Chapter 6 "An Array of Idiots"

Luke sat down in front of the communicator and waited for a line to the outside to become available. When the Jedi Master got a green light, he punched in the frequency for his Trade Federation contact. Luke slipped his TFR credit voucher into the expense field, and his call was placed.

As the connection was being established, Luke looked around the small, private com station. He and Han were on the moon orbiting Welfan 6 at a trader's resort. The Trade Federation had set up numerous resorts for its pilots, trying to make them feel special and respected. In reality, the over priced bars and rigged chance games were an effort to reclaim the low wages the Federation paid its pilots.

Luke had his female disguise ready when the holo-com connected, but found the other side was sending audio only. Luke was not sure if it was also only receiving audio and kept up his disguise just in case. "This is Delan Fowlry, TFR 104-21-006, reporting in."

Luke waited for the automated response. "TFR 104-21-006, please authenticate your Trade Federation Trader."

"Han Solo, TFT 104-28-328," Luke replied.

"Thank-you, TFR 104-21-006. Your contact will be with you shortly."

Luke tapped his fingers on the console impatiently as the wait turned into minutes. This is so impersonal, Luke thought. At least with the old regime you were always talking with a person.

"Hello, Miss Fowlry," a man's voice suddenly came from the other end of the com. There was still no picture coming in, but Luke's terminal showed he was transmitting visual and it was being received.

"I'm sorry sir," Luke said, "but it seems your visual isn't coming through."

"That's not surprising," was all Luke got for a response. "My name is Cactun Gell, TFC 444-06. I'll be your Trade Federation Contact, until you are notified differently. I appreciate you taking time out of your day to talk with me. I imagine keeping up with Solo can be a full time affair."

There was something very odd about Cactun. His voice sounded strange, almost as if it were strained. Plus, he was being rather chumish, as if they were old friends and Han a mutual acquaintance. "Solo has acted no different than expected," Luke responded curtly, remembering his cover. He was posing as a Frolian female. Frolians were very efficient and punctual.

"Of course he has," Cactun said, almost chuckling. "Why should he misbehave? His colored past his well behind him, and I suppose all smugglers slow down with age. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if he still had a few tricks up his sleeve."

"Tricks, sir?"

"Ah, you're probably right. He's harmless. So how did the first shipment go?"

"Nothing unusual, sir. Payment was accurate and in accordance with current pricing. The shipment was picked up on schedule and delivered six hours ahead of schedule."

"That's Solo for you, always pushing the envelope. I bet he's got that Falcon soupped up something special."

Luke was beginning to believe that this Cactun Gell and Han had some sort of history. "Is there something wrong with Solo, sir? Am I correct in understanding that he is on a probationary status? Shouldn't this deter him from any flagrant activity?"

"Quite right, quite right, my dear. In fact, that probationary status will be dropped just as soon as I can work the datacards through the system. That means you are his only check if he screws up."

"Sir, do you expect Solo to screw up?" Luke was beginning to get suspicious. On the outside this guy seemed like just an old fan of the retired general, but Luke's Jedi senses could pick up something else. What had sounded like a strained voice now felt like a scrambled voice. Why would anyone scramble their voice pattern? Delan Fowlry had only spoken to Cog Fardin and his secretary. Surely Fardin was not on the other end of this line trying to disguise his voice. Luke did not even think he would be able to recognize the Twi'lek's voice if he did hear it again.

"He might, he might," Cactun said suddenly sober. "He just might. Why don't you get to know him. See if he has any ulterior motives. Could you do that? Thanks. We'll talk again in a week. Bye."

What an odd man, Luke thought as he closed the connection.

***

Han walked into the bar, wondering if he was going to need a lightsaber to get through the thick smoke. Chewie grumbled about the thick smell getting into his fur. "If you don't like it, you don't have to stay, buddy." Chewie ignored the comment and made a straight line to the holo-chess games.

Han picked up a drink at the bar and sauntered over to the corner of the room where the visibility was a bit better. There were three sabacc tables going and Han already had his picked out. The old smuggler had thought he recognized one of the ships in the hangar and now saw that there were two people on this moon he knew.

Treg Nyugt, a Sullustan who had been a friend to Nien Nunb, Lando's copilot at Endor, was sitting at one table with Derran Speedsting. Han was not sure if Derran's last name was fictional or not, but the former smuggler had used it his whole career. Han could not think of a better name for a smuggler on the run with a fast, powerful ship like Derran had. The smuggler had played his last name up for everything it was worth back in the days, getting more jobs and women than anyone else. Han had always thought his own last name fitting too, until he had met Leia, that is.

Treg looked up from the game momentarily, catching sight of Han approaching the table. The Sullustan blinked his large eyes repeatedly, not believing who he was seeing coming through the smoke. "Han Solo," Treg said amazed.

"What are you talking about him for?" Derran asked perplexed, his back to the approaching Solo. "Why he's the most dried-up, would-be pilot there ever was. I could out rac-"

"It's nice to see you too, Speedsting," Han said as he stood over the human.

Derran turned about in his chair so fast, he showed his hand to all at the table. Everyone promptly folded. "What in the Maw are you doing here? I figured you to be on a beach somewhere playing with your grandkids."

Han took an empty chair at the table where there were already four players. "Nobody said you could sit down, Grandpa," Derran said hotly, still flustered at Han's appearance.

Han looked at the rest of the table. There was Treg, a Quarren, and a boy who looked younger than Anakin. "Any of you mind if I bring my credits to this table?" Treg smiled, eager to get caught up with an old Rebellion friend. The Quarren shook his head, happy for a full table, and the boy was just awe struck at Han's presence.

"My name's Kyle Grentic," the boy offered his hand to Han. "I just joined the Federation last week. It's a pleasure to meet you, General."

"Trying to make a number for yourself, eh?" Han said. The kid looked confused by the statement, but Treg and the Quarren laughed at the joke. It used to be important to make a name for yourself in the independent lifestyle of a trader, but now the Trade Federation cared more about your ID number.

"He's not a general anymore, kid," Derran jumped in. "Ol' Gramps here is retired."

Han turned to address Derran's insults finally. "Speedsting, I have three kids and no grandchildren yet."

"Not for a lack of trying," Derran grumbled. "Enough chatter, let's play some sabacc."

"Player five has not entered his credit voucher for play," the dealer droid announced.

Han pulled out his pay voucher from his last shipment and slid it in the slot on the side of the table. "Solo enters the game with 2,800 credits."

"Twenty-eight hundred!" Derran screamed loud enough for the whole bar to hear. "What do you think this game is? This isn't like those friendly games you've been playing up in the Coruscant Palace, you know."

Han looked at the digital display in front of Derran to see the man had over 10,000 credit in this game. All the other players had less than 5,000 and 2,800 was not that low. "Sorry, Speedsting, but the Federation isn't paying as well as it should."

Derran almost fell out of his chair at that one. "You've joined the Trade Federation! Now I've seen it all! How the mighty have fallen, eh, Squid Head."

The Quarren said nothing but motioned to the droid to get on with the next hand. Han received two card-chips and realized they were playing a very old game. He held a seven of staves and the Endurance card. The rules of sabacc changed often with the many variations of the game out there, but ever since the Rebellion the 16 face cards had been changed from the old style.

The new face cards were developed to remind the galaxy that there had been a dramatic change in the way of thinking. The old face cards, and the ones they were playing with here, were the Idiot, Queen of Air and Darkness, Endurance, Balance, Demise, Moderation, The Evil One, and The Star. The new ones were the Idiot, Rancor, Jedi Knight, Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Dark Jedi, Lord of the Sith, and Jedi Master. These new face cards obviously represented members of the Rebellion and the New Republic, and Han had always felt proud that his persona had been represented among with the Jedi.

Han looked over to the dealing droid. It was an MT-200. The first dealing droid produced for sabacc had been an MT-100. The last game Han had played had been run by an MT-5000. The 200 model was not even capable of randomization. This game was going to be old school and straight up.

The Quarren started the betting with a moderate raise of 10; everyone met the bet until it got to Han. His hand of -1 did not look too promising and he folded right away. "Solo folds in the first phase, adding five to the sabacc pot," the droid dealer announced.

Han was used to it only being one credit for folding, but shrugged as he watched the holo image of the sabacc pot grow to 10 credits. The hand pot worked itself up to 300 before Derran won it with a 22, one away from a pure sabacc.

The next few hands went poorly for Han. He bombed out once with a 24, having to pay the hand pot, 64, into the sabacc pot. He almost always folded before the call, and was the main contributor to the sabacc pot, which was growing faster than normal.

After Han bombed out for the second time in six hands, paying 200 to the sabacc pot, Kyle tried to engage the legend in some conversation. "So how does the Trade Federation compare to smuggling, Han?" The kid sounded very uncomfortable using Han's first name, but did not want to call him general again.

Derran laughed out loud at the question, and Han felt like doing so also. "There is no comparison, kid," Han said gruffly as he looked at his cards, an ace of coins and a mistress of staves. They totaled to 28, another potential bomb out. Han let his disgust show as Derran raised a presumptuous 50. "The Federation is a sham. The pay is too low and the scheduling sucks." Han watched as the Quarren and Kyle folded. Treg met the bet and it was Han's play. He had half a mind to fold again, not wanting to get caught with a bomb out with such a high hand pot.

Any time you had a total that was higher or lower than positive 23 or -23 respectively, you had to pay the hand pot into the sabacc pot. The winner of each hand cleared the hand pot, but it took an array or pure sabacc to win the sabacc pot.

Han had had enough of Derran, and met his 50. Derran declined another card, and Han knew he had 21 or 22. He might even have a pure sabacc, but Han doubted it. The longer Derran played the hand, the better chance either Han or Treg had to get an array and beat Derran for the sabacc pot, which was now up to 648. If Derran had a 23, he would not risk it and would have called by now. Instead, he raised another 50, causing Treg to fold.

Han looked at his new card, an eight of flasks. He now had 36, still a bomb out, but a much better hand than before. Now any one of six of the face cards would put him at or right under 23. Han matched the bet, and kept his dejected face. Everyone at the table knew that Han was over 23 and that Derran had a great hand, it was just a question of how long Derran would string the former general on.

Derran again declined a card, happy with the two he had and Han received the Demise card with a value of -13. He now had a pure sabacc, but his face looked like he had just picked up another ace. Derran saw that he was running out of time and Han would fold any time now.

"Well, buddy," Derran said, laying his cards on the table, showing a 22, "what do ya got. A 40? A 50?"

Han faked extreme agitation as he tossed three of his cards onto the table. Everyone quickly added up his cards to 36, and then waited for him to throw his fourth. When the last card landed upside down in front of Derran he turned it over for only him to see. The old smuggler leveled a stare at Han before he showed the card to the dealer.

"Solo has a pure sabacc and wins both the hand pot and sabacc pot. Speedsting called and lost, and must pay the hand pot of 255 into the sabacc pot."

"Can it Empty," Derran said to the MT-200. He realized that Han had let him build the hand pot up so high just so Derran would have to pay it into the sabacc pot before Han cleaned them both out.

The Quarren laughed heartily at sight, and soon Kyle and Treg joined in. "Har, har," Derran mimicked sarcastically, watching the huge holo credit stacks disappear from both pots and Han's credits grow by over 1,200.

"So what do you really think about the Trade Federation?" Treg asked as the next hand was dealt. Everyone realized that Han's sour mood had just been a rouse to trick Derran and now it was over.

"I think we need to get them to address our rights as traders," Han replied, raising 10 credits after looking at his hand.

"Like what?" Kyle asked, matching the raise.

"Well, for starters, most shipping companies own their own ships. This requires a huge capitol investment on a corporate level, and it takes a long time to recover that cost without sending freight costs through the roof. The Federation has it made. Every week they get a dozen more traders and they each come with a free ship. The Federation hasn't had to put forth one credit towards any type of investment. I say they should allow us each an expense line to make improvements to our ships.

"I'm sure we've all spent a fortune upgrading our ships with our own money, but that was back when we were hauling our own cargo. Now we are hauling the Federation's cargo and any wear and tear on our ships should be compensated through them."

"It'd be in their best interest," Kyle agreed, folding out of the hand. "I mean if they give me money to improve my sublight drive, it's going to mean faster shipments for them."

"It's the same as if they owned the ships. They wouldn't ask the pilots to pay for upgrades on the ships; they'd pay for it themselves. This is the same thing without the initial capitol investment on the Federation's part."

"Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into this," Treg said, as he won the pot.

"Yea," Derran added, having just bombed out and paying the sabacc pot to the tune of 160, "is the Falcon in need of another overhaul?"

Han ignored the negative comment, remembering why he had really sat down at this table. "You still flying that Nubian chill freighter, Derran?"

The man nodded, raising 100 on the next hand and watching everyone fold.

"That's a great ship," Han explained to the rest of the players. "Tell, me, Derran. Do you get any bonus for being able to ship chilled product? The most expensive electronic equipment out there almost always has to be shipped at 40 below. Plus you are able to ship meet and frozen foods. Those are expensive commodities. The Federation is making a lot of money off your ship, but I bet you aren't making any more than the rest of us."

Derran's face was starting to change its expression. At first he thought Han was just sounding like a politician, and he was about to make a joke about Han hanging around with all the senators, but now he realized that Han had a good point.

"It costs a lot of money to keep your ship running, doesn't it?"

Derran nodded as the cards were dealt out for the next hand.

"If the Federation had bought that ship, they would treat it with incredible care. Instead you sort of gave it to them for free, and now they aren't even going to help pay maintenance."

The players were quiet for a while. "What did you mean a while back when you said the scheduling sucked?" Kyle asked after two hands of silent play.

"Where are you from?" Han asked back.

"Coruscant," he replied.

"Do you have a girl, or maybe family back home?"

"Both," Kyle responded, smiling broadly.

"Instead, you're spending your time out here, a good five days from Coruscant. I bet the traders running the routes around Coruscant right now are from out here. The Federation computers that schedule traders for shipments don't bother to look where the traders are from, they just take the nearest, first available ship. This means that since there is no conscious effort to keep you near Coruscant, you could theoretically not get back home for years.

"We don't get vacation time, because they tell us we will occasionally have a day or two between shipments. Even if you had four days between shipments, you still wouldn't even be able to make it home, much less spend any time there."

Like Kyle had said, he only started a week ago, but was already getting home sick listening to Han talk. Derran laughed as he laid down a fool's array, taking both pots. The sabacc pot was mostly his money anyway, but it was still considerable. "Ah, it'll be good for the kid to get away for a while."

Han realized that most traders were like Derran, men without a home. They could care less about the schedule. "What about your weapons?" Han asked as the next hand was being dealt.

"What about them?" Derran responded, suddenly defensive.

Han knew that his own stash of illegal weapons aboard the Falcon paled in comparison to Derran's collection. "Have you looked at the Federation's list of illegal weapons?"

"My TFR is a moron," Derran replied. "He couldn't tell a Gamorean disrupter from a Corellian sling. Besides, my weapons are more like an art collection than for actual use."

"That's because you haven't been hit by pirates yet," Han said.

"Pirates?" Kyle was still recovering from the idea that he might not see home for a long while and now had to deal with pirates.

"Pirates wouldn't dare attack my ship."

"Why not?" Han asked. "They know that you're not allowed to carry anything but a heavy blaster. Heck, even Chewie's bow caster is illegal. And what about your ship? There are only certain weapon modifications allowed on the ships also. Pirates know this. They also probably have the ability to slice into the Federation's shipping schedule. Not only does the Trade Federation not help you maintain your ship, but they won't allow you to protect it either."

"I'm sure no TFR would report you for illegal weapons if it saved their butt from pirates," Treg put in.

"You haven't met my TFR," Han replied. He looked over his shoulder and saw Delan Fowlry sitting at the bar fending off two drunk men.

"That's your TFR!?" Kyle said, suddenly more envious of Han than ever before.

"I bet you've gotten to know her real well," Derran said, grinning lewdly. "Haven't you?"

"Only every night of the trip over here," Han said with a straight face.

"Your bluffing," Derran responded, knowing about Leia.

Han looked at his hand and raised 200. "Am I?"

Derran never looked down as he keyed in to match the bet. "Call."

Han flopped his hand of 14 on to the table and watched Derran's hand of 20 take the pot.

"What are we supposed to do about it?" Kyle asked.

"Do about what?" Derran asked.

"The injustices in the system," the kid responded.

Derran just laughed at the naive youngster eating up everything Han was feeding him.

"The only thing we can do," Han said, looking at his two cards and suppressing a smile. "There is strength in numbers. We need to band together and form a-"

"A Union," Derran finished for him. Derran had noticed the suppressed grin and raised 25 to test Han's hand. "You want to form a blasted Union?!" Derran had a hand with an Idiot and an eight, not a great hand, but any ranked card would put him in the low twenties.

Han was looking at The Star and an ace, one card away from a Nova array. He met the 25 and reraised to 50. The other players realized this was a hand between Han and Derran and respectfully folded. Derran met the reraise and both players took another card.

Derran was now looking at a six, a three, and the Idiot. An Idiot's array was made up of the Idiot card and any two and three, making a literal 23. Derran watched Han's face fall slightly as he looked at his next card. Derran knew Han was playing with him again. He was pretending to try for some type of array, and would meet any of Derran's bets, only to bet the maximum on the final raise to make Derran drop out. Derran was not going to fall for it.

Han had not gotten the other ace needed for the Nova array. He had gotten a 10. In the old style of sabacc all of the face cards had an array. The Idiot's array was by far the most common, but each face card had one. Unlike the Idiot card, the other face cards had two different versions of their array. There was a straight array, which involved only three cards. Then there was a pure array, which added a fourth card to make the array's total equal 23. A Nova array involved two aces and The Star card. Since the aces were each worth 15 and The Star was worth -17, the fourth card for a pure array was a 10.

Derran raised the maximum bet right away, 500 credits. Derran was only representing nine, but he was sure Han was waiting for one more card. Han only had eight, but met the bet and actually reraised 250. Derran met the bet and asked for another card. He dropped his six and picked up a two. He was now looking at an Idiot's array, his second of the night, and with two pots for the taking totaling over 3000 together.

What Han did took Derran totally by surprise. Instead of dropping a card and picking up another one, Han took a fourth card into his hand. Again Han let his face fall briefly. Since Derran knew Han could keep a straight face through the best hand ever, he had expected Han to show jubilation at his last card so he could bluff the last bet. Now, with four cards in Han's hand, Derran had no idea what his opponent was up to. Han raised 500.

In any other situation, Derran would be worried. There was a huge pot at stake and Han had played his face tells in such a way as to totally confuse Derran. He was supposed to be bluffing, but no one showed an ugly face when bluffing, that was too obvious. Still, with four cards in his hand, Han could only be representing a 23. Derran had an Idiot's array. That had to win.

Derran met the bet and called. He laid down his cards with very little flair, despite the "ooh's" from the other players. Even the Quarren made an audible reaction to the hand and the pots it could win.

Han laid down his cards one at a time. First the ace of cups, then the ten of flasks. When Derran saw the two cards totaling 25, he breathed a sigh of relief. Han's only play now was to come back with a face card to hit 23. The third card told him he had lost. Han laid the ace of flasks next to the ten making the total on the table 40. The only card that could bring that back to 23 was The Star, and with the two aces on the table . . .

"A Nova array," Kyle said breathlessly.

No one needed to see Han's last card. Everyone knew he had not been bluffing. "A pure Nova array," the MT-200 corrected when it finally saw Han's last card.

"Good play, Solo," Derran managed to say, totally humbled. It was only after the MT-200 announced the scoring that he realized he had called and lost again, forcing him to pay the hand pot into the sabacc pot before Han took it all. The two pots totaled over 7000 and Han resisted the urge to gloat over his old smuggling associate.

Instead, Han took his winnings and checked out of the game. "It's been fun talking with you guys. Think about what I said. See you around." With that, Han turned toward the bar, picked up his female brother-in-law and his holo-chess-playing Wookiee, and left the building.

***

There were three at the breakfast table this morning.

For the first time, it was Alex Snotzenexer that was trying futilely to get his wife's attention as opposed to the other way around.

"Jill, could you put the child down for a moment and listen to me?"

Sanson reversed her grip on their son so both mother and child were looking at Snotzenexer. "What's a matter, Daddy?" Sanson asked, mimicking her infant's voice. "Don't you love me anymore?"

Snotzenexer could sense the playfulness in his wife's voice and knew the accusation was not serious. "No, David," Snotzenexer replied, speaking to his son and playing the game, "never that. It's just that your mother and I need to discuss things that are a bit above your head."

Sanson flipped the baby around, made a few faces at him, and placed him gently in his chair. "What is so important that it has to interrupt our son's breakfast?"

Snotzenexer decided not to bring up the point that their son had stopped eating his breakfast many minutes ago and only Sanson's constant cooing and gurgling was keeping him awake. "How is the scrimmage coming along?"

Sanson turned serious for a moment. "The captains have been laying down all of the rules and guidelines for the attack. The have made up damage simulators and are equipping all of their ships with light weapons. They have also alerted the media to the event and the networks are scrambling for coverage rights. It seems they want the whole galaxy to know who should be ruling the military and they want them to see it live."

"I couldn't agree more," Snotzenexer smiled. "And how are our troops doing?"

"The three clones are busy training the rest of our pilots and everyone is studying the battle histories we discussed. The scrimmage is in one week and we shall be ready."

Snotzenexer paused in his questions and took another bite of food. Sanson took the opportunity to ask a few questions of her own. "And how is the banking business going?"

"Splendid. I've talked with the President of the Coruscant Galactic Bank and he couldn't be happier with the idea of a merger. There are still a few board members that are scared they will disappear after the merger. While the Varion Imperial Bank is smaller than the CGB, the VIB has far more prestige right now. Even though I am trying to convince them that neither bank is going to swallow the other and it will be an even merger, they were still a little hesitant."

"How did you convince them?"

"I told them I plan on moving the main offices to the Coruscant branch. Instead of keeping the Iom branch as the center of operation, it will be easier after the merger to relocate."

"You'll also be able to remove any trace of evidence from the Varion system," Sanson added.

"Yea, something like that." Snotzenexer had been keeping a close eye on Sandie Hollins over the past few months. After it was decided he was going to attempt a merger with the largest bank in the galaxy, he began to wonder what would happen to the Iom branch. There was still a lot of evidence that could be uncovered and Snotzenexer wished he had a better way to keep on eye on the goings on in the Varion system. Unfortunately, he could only keep track of so much.

Sandie had become more distant recently. Snotzenexer did not know if that was because she was becoming more independent or if she was slowly uncovering all of her boss' misdeeds. She used to call him once a week for updates and advice, but now the calls were down to once a month.

Sanson and Snotzenexer had decided to go straight, or as straight as could be expected. They no longer planed on turning the government into a ruthless dictatorship, and covering their tracks to make sure no one discovered their crimes became more important than before. Snotzenexer still needed a way to deal with the bank on Iom, but he was sure something would present itself. It always did.

Chapter 7 "Engineering Lessons"

Wedge, Vince, and Bep had arrived at Yavin IV a full day before Anakin had brought the huge Sith missile into orbit around the jungle moon. Using the Academy's carrier, the four men with Perry Tremon's help, unloaded the fighters and brought them down to the surface, lining them up in a clearing that had been created eight months ago by Snotzenexer when he had rained fire down on the Academy.

Mara was there to look at the collection and was definitely impressed. She and Thomas Thorin had decided to organize the upcoming resistance, and with the former Imperial captain gone with Leia to meet with a potential ally near the Varion system, Mara was given command of the base operations. When Wedge had told her that he had found a bunch of ships, she had been hoping for capitol ships, but she was not too disappointed with the V-38's. As a former Imperial agent under the Emperor, she knew a lot about the Empire's secret weapons, and these were some of the better ones.

Mara also noticed that they had brought down a very large supply of ground based turbo laser mounts. "What do you plan to do with those?" Mara asked Wedge as she pulled him away from the activity.

"Vince says he has a way to mount them onto the TIE's," Wedge responded.

"Yea, right," Mara said. "There's no way a fighter that small could ever hope to support a gun requiring more energy per shot than a TIE could produce in an hour."

"You're exaggerating a little," Vince said, walking up to the pair, overhearing their conversation.

"How do you plan to do this?" she asked, hoping that this young man knew much more about what he was talking about than she.

"I designed a system for our old carrier that the Empire stole when they captured us. It involves a type of energy flywheel, which spins anti-mater in a magnetic field. The turbo laser is fired by routing the hyperdrive through the weapons system and drawing the anti-matter out of the containment field with the inertia damper, and thus accelerating the anti-matter to light speed, propelling it through the laser cannon. When the anti-matter leaves the containment field it looses stability and dissolves into pure energy. The result is an energy source that lasts just as long as large batteries, but takes up one one-thousandth of the room."

"Sounds pretty complicated, especially since TIE's don't have a hyperdrive," Mara smirked, thinking to have found a flaw in the young Lieutenant's plan.

"The TIE fighters don't," Vince agreed, "but the Interceptors do. These are advanced prototypes."

Mara did not want to be defeated so easily. "Yes, but where do you plan on getting the room to mount the turbo lasers. If you put them anywhere on the ship, they'll hang outside the cloak and make the ship visible."

"We're installing them into the torpedo cavities. They're exactly the right size, and we have little use for the cavities since we don't have any Imperial style missiles on hand. Republic torpedoes aren't compatible."

Mara was not going to give up. "You said you needed a magnetic containment field to store your energy flywheel . . ." Mara paused realizing where they were going to get that before Vince explained.

"Each of the TIE fighters have containment cells to transform the energy from their solar receptors into pulse energy for the weapons system. By harvesting the cells from the hyperdrive-less ships, we can get enough for two cells per interceptor."

Mara tried to remember exactly what Vince had said. The engineer was hanging around with an expectant look, so Mara thought there might still be something she was missing. "In order to draw the energy out of the containment cell with the inertia damper, you're going to need a matter to anti-matter adapter, aren't you?"

Vince nodded his head, surprised that Mara had the technical knowledge to see the one problem in his plan. "I might be able to gather one or two of the adapters from the Imperial wreckage left behind by Snotzenexer. I think the AT-AT's used them for planetary repulsion, but I'm going to need 48 of them in order to retrofit all 24 of the Interceptors with two turbo lasers."

"You're also going to need to reprogram the nav com to initiate an inertia field to accept the turbo laser's recoil," Mara pointed out, not yet finished with her analysis of the idea.

Vince looked confused for a moment. He had not thought of that. The only ship he had tried this on before was a carrier. That ship had been big enough to absorb any type of recoil ten times the size of a turbo laser, but the TIE's would fly back as if the reverse hyperspace thrusters had fired. "Yes," Vince said slowly, "I will."

Mara watched the tall pilot walk away, still confused as to how both he and Bep could have missed that important detail. Mara did not bask in her superior technical knowledge too long, needing to talk to Anakin. She beckoned for the young Jedi to come over to her. "Ghent needs your help on Coruscant," she said when he came in range.

"The 'Magnificent Ghent' needs my help?" Anakin asked sarcastically. He had made fun of the slicer when he and Mara had chased down the trail of Ghent a month ago. It had taken a while to find him, but Anakin had then quickly got enough evidence against him to give Mara her means for contact.

"You wouldn't know the first thing about setting up a trade networking system, but you can help him. He's known as Quintil Harpinge. He'll be expecting someone soon. Leave as soon as you can and disguise yourself as someone much older."

Anakin nodded and left to go pack. Mara watched him go and then turned to watch the rest of the activity. Ra'tok was helping Vince and Bep with the TIE's. Wedge and Perry were trying to get some large machinery into place so they could begin overhauling. She knew Ghent, and soon Anakin, would be busting their butts to gain control of the Trade Federation. Leia and Thomas were working to get the public to start to question the immaculate Snotzenexer. Mara was not really sure what Han and Luke were doing, but she hoped it panned out into something. This huge plan of theirs just might work.

***

Farion Plebotius walked into the bar early in the night, hoping to stay there for a long time. He had a lot of drinking to get caught up on. Farion was the chief engineer at the Varion Construction Yards and his boss, President Ferris Loyran, had been working him to the bone. Though Farion was the chief engineer, he had been removed from the factory floor about three months ago and now operated more like a senior VP than the head grease monkey.

President Loyran had taken Farion and a few other important staff members in the VCY into confidence. The penalty for this added knowledge was working overtime in accordance with Loyran's wishes concerning this new information. Farion's assignment was by far the most stressful out of all the other informed staff members.

The group of elite included two lawyers, the head accountant, the purchasing VP, the materials manager, and Farion. The rest of the group had been given assignments to start hoarding finances in the event that Snotzenexer should try to shut them down. Most of it was illegal, but that was what the lawyers were for. Farion had the unenviable task of trying to figure out how they could keep almost a dozen Star Destroyers docked at their facility despite Snotzenexer's insistence that they be repaired and returned to service.

Admiral Sanson had approached President Loyran almost a year ago with the task of repairing and overhauling almost 30 Star Destroyers. Now the task was nearly completed, and would be if Farion had not stalled the proceedings as much as he had. President Loyran was scared that if he did not keep the ships, Snotzenexer would have no more use for him or his company, and they would meet an ill fated end.

Farion walked up to the bar and took a seat in a line of mostly unoccupied stools. The chief engineer ordered a drink and looked about the usually busy establishment. There were close to two dozen people crowded in the main room, but most of them were huddled in a corner around what looked like an arcade machine.

"New flight simulator arcade," the bartender explained as he poured Farion's drink. "It's called 'Advanced TIE.'"

"An Imperial flight simulator?" Farion asked incredulously.

The bartender nodded. "I guess after the war is over and the enemy is defeated its okay to appreciate them. If you like the TIE fighter now, you're not a traitor, you're just a historian."

"Still-" Farion started.

The bartender raised his hand to stop him. Farion visited the bar often and the bartender knew his views on the Empire. "I don't care how much you despise the Empire and its technology, the game is going to pay for itself in two months, not including the increased bar tabs because of the extra customers it brings."

Farion smiled as he took a sip of his drink, realizing the money minded person behind the counter could care less about politics and controversy. "So how much is it making an hour for you right now?"

"Right now?" the bartender frowned. "Oh, about five credits an hour."

Farion looked back at the machine again. "Was it cheap?"

"Oh no. It cost 50 grand."

"Then how-"

The bartender cut him off again. "You asked how much money it was taking in right now," he tapped the counter as he said the last two words. "Right now," he tapped again, "it is taking in five credits an hour. As soon as the kid who's playing it gets out, it will go back to about 100 credits an hour."

"Good player?" Farion asked, though he would have to be.

"It costs five credits to play," the bartender explained. "Most players last about two or three minutes. This kid on it now could play all day for less than you're going to spend on drinks tonight if he had the money. I think he only comes in when he can scrape together five credits, plays for at least an hour, and then leaves. I have customers who have asked me to call them when he comes in to play so they can watch him."

"I guess he's pretty popular with the rest of the customers," Farion said.

"Not really," the bartender said motioning to the game in the corner.

Farion looked over there and saw the crowd parting so the player could leave the game, his play finished. Farion was a ship connoisseur. He had helped design more than half of his company's marketable ships and had won three different awards by several different organizations that recognize excellence in ship design. The only thing he appreciated more than a good ship, was a pilot who could fly them.

As the crowd parted the chief engineer saw a dilapidated wheelchair that had been pushed off into the corner by the gathering crowd around the simulator. The kid who had been playing the game popped his head out of the machine and looked around before exiting. It was clear to Farion that he was looking for the wheelchair.

This disability made the bartender's comment about the player not being well liked very clear. They were on Iom, home of the Varion Imperial Bank, the main offices of the Varion Construction Yards, and countless other mega corporations. Varia, the system's namesake, had long ago lost its status as the center of commerce and importance. Iom had a reputation for perfection and those who did not fit that image were shunned. Medicine had advanced very far on this planet, meaning the only disabled were poor or alien.

As Farion watched the pilot move himself carefully from the simulator into the wheelchair, the engineer could see this young man was both. His long, thin frame was far in excess of the normal Varion citizen, and his pale skin contrasted with the tanned bodies around him that jockeyed for position to be the next in the machine. Everyone ignored the pilot once he had left the simulator. He was just entertainment to them, and now that he was no longer streaking though space, blowing the other fighters out of the sky, he was just an alien cripple. The only reason anyone had retrieved his wheelchair at all was so they could get him out of the game and let someone else play.

This young man greatly intrigued Farion. The combination of his size, handicap, skill, and the fact he was an alien to this system drew Farion to him. "Skyn," Farion called to the bartender, "Give me another drink."

Skyn looked at Farion's glass, still three-quarters full. "If it's for the kid, I better make it a soda. He doesn't drink."

Farion shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever." He took the second drink and made his way quickly toward a table between the pilot and the outside door. The cripple was expertly weaving his chair through the crowd around the arcade game and between the tables and chairs toward the door.

"You know they can put repulsars on that chair for you."

Jon Poncho looked up from his task of weaving through the bar to identify the man who had spoken. "Who can?"

"Why, any vehicle repair shop can do it. It's a very simple procedure."

"Will they do it for free?" Jon asked.

Farion did not replay, realizing he was not giving this conversation very much thought. He was lecturing an incredible pilot on the advantages of repulsars over wheels.

Jon took the pause to mean "no" and continued toward the door. "Wait," Farion said before Jon could make any real progress past him, "won't you please take a seat." Farion motioned across the table.

"I'm already sitting."

It was clear to Farion that this young man had not always been a cripple, and the fact that he was one now tried his sanity. The chief engineer had not been wise with his choice of words thus far, and decided not to talk anymore. He slid the soda across the table toward Jon and beckoned for him to pull up.

Jon did not think he was going to like this man. There was really no reason this stranger should take an interest in a cripple other than for his own gain, especially so shortly after Jon had showcased his incredible talent. At the same time, a free drink was something Jon did not get often, if ever. He pulled up to the table, sliding the existing chair out of the way.

Farion watched in silence as Jon took the offered drink in hand and slowly drank half of it at once. Neither of them spoke right away, and Jon saw the opportunity to drink the gift and be on his way without out further hassle from this stranger. Farion saw the same opportunity.

"So why do you do it?" Farion asked.

Jon looked back puzzled.

"I've been talking to the owner of this place," Farion explained. "He tells me you come in here maybe once a day, play that game for an hour, and then leave. It's obvious you are not rich. In fact, I doubt you have more than 20 credits on you right now." Jon had 17. "So why do you come in here to play an expensive arcade game in front of a crowd that resents your existence outside of the machine?"

Farion sat back, happy that he had finally been able to make some sense. He expected this young man to tell him about how he had grown up wishing to be a pilot. He had practiced long and hard, flying anything he could get his hands on. Then one day he got into a terrible accident, banishing him to a wheel chair. All his friends rejected him, and all those who had pushed him to succeed failed to support him when he did not. Now the only satisfaction he could gain from life was in a cockpit, and the only cockpit he could find was sitting in the corner of this bar.

"I need to stay sharp," Jon replied.

"For what?" Farion asked, not expecting the answer he got.

"If I grow weak, the enemy will win."

"What enemy?"

Jon had been on Iom for six months. He had gotten out of the hospital five months ago and had only become strong enough to move himself about in the last two months. He now lived his life in the wheelchair. He slept in the chair; he begged from the chair, and he took rain showers in the chair. Iom did not have many homeless and was very clean as a result. He could find food in the allies behind restaurants and warmth in the underground mass transit systems. The only reason he had not taken the turbo lift up to Pytyon's Peak and wheeled of the edge, crashing into the scenic gorge bellow was that he needed to get revenge.

"The Empire," Jon said slowly.

"Surly the Empire is no more?" Farion said, his light tone of voice contrasting violently with Jon's cold stare.

Jon did not say anything. He had finished his drink but did not leave. He just kept staring at the stranger across the table, trying to put a little bit of fear into the man. He tried to let him know that he was not living in a cozy world, and definitely not in a cozy galaxy.

Farion was trying to figure out this young man. His original theory was obviously wrong. This young man had been injured by the Empire, that much was obvious. He had also been injured very recently, for one could not gain skill at piloting from a wheel chair, and this young man was not much past 20 years old. Even at 20, most pilots are only applying to a flight academy, yet this young man had managed to become a great pilot, and then suffered defeat at the hand of the Empire.

Another reality hit Farion. He had just reasoned that the young man had battled the Empire within the last year, but also realized that he had fought here, in the Varion system. He had been stranded here. No cripple comes to Iom to seek a life style; that was what the slums of Coruscant were for. In fact, Farion could remember a report of a crashed fighter about six months ago. The local law enforcement had asked him if it belonged to the VCY.

All of this meant that the Empire, or at least an organization that this young man thought was the Empire, was actively shooting down fighters as recently as six months ago.

Jon still had not answered Farion's last question, so he asked it again. "The Empire has been gone for longer than you've been alive, son. Sure there have been a few skirmishes here and there, but nothing very serious. Who really shot you down?"

Jon was officially no longer a member of the Republic Navy. Yet, in his mind, the Republic Navy was no longer a member of the Republic Navy either. When Sanson and Snotzenexer took the reigns, the fleet ceased to belong to the Republic and was now Imperial. Still, Jon felt like he was enlisted in the military and should therefore still adhere to the oaths he made when he joined. One of those oaths was not disclosing classified or vital military information to members of the public.

Jon thought about this briefly and decided that, from then on out, he was no longer a member of the Republic. There, on the spot, he created the Imperial Resistance Militia, and as the charter member of the IRM, he got to decide who knew what. "There are several Star Destroyers hiding in your asteroid field right now," Jon said slowly.

Farion knew this was not true. All capable Star Destroyers had pulled out of the Varion system a couple months ago, and the only Imperial hardware remaining was sitting in his space docks. He also knew that this young man's statement made six months ago would have been true.

"And who controls these Star Destroyers?" Farion asked.

Jon said nothing, deciding that this information should not be divulged.

"You don't know, do you?" Farion said. He was feeling confident now that is original theory had been correct. This was just a kid who had grown up wishing to be the next Antilles. He became a great pilot, and while wandering through the asteroid field, no doubt testing his skill, he ran across a Star Destroyer. With delusions of grandeur, he engaged it in battle. The rest was history.

Farion tried to put a smug look on his face as this train of thought went though his mind, but looking at the young man across from him made that train derail. Farion could see that this pilot knew exactly who commanded those Star Destroyers, probably better than he did.

The chief engineer at VCY had not lived comfortably in the past few months. Not only had his boss made him work over time, but the reasons for that work were not entirely clear. While President Loyran had told his employees everything he knew, the president did not know everything. In fact, looking into Jon's eyes, Farion realized that Loyran knew very little.

"My name is Farion Plebotius. I'm the Chief Engineer of the Varion Construction Yards. I promise you, if you help me, I will help you."

Jon knew little about the VCY. He had no idea about Snotzenexer's connection with the ship building corporation or that several Star Destroyers were docked at its space docks. Jon did know, however, that the VCY was one of the premiere construction yards in the galaxy. The idea of trading information for weapons was not an acceptable practice according to his old employers, but Jon thought it was allowable considering the Imperial Resistance Militia's low ship count.

"What do you want to know?" Jon asked carefully.

"Everything."

Two hours later Jon was sitting in a repulsar chair in one of the main offices of the VCY. Both Farion and President Loyran (he insisted on being called Ferris) were seated opposite Jon at a small table. Jon had just outlined everything he knew and both men were dumbfounded.

"Let me get this straight," Farion said finally. "Snotzenexer was responsible for the Denorid disaster?" He still could not believe what Jon had told them.

Jon nodded slowly.

Both VCY men were too lost in thought to argue the insanity of this thought. Farion was madly trying to figure out what he was going to do when Sanson came back into the Varion system with her Super Star Destroyer, demanding the rest of her ships.

Ferris was lost in thought, but he was not worried yet. He was admiring Snotzenexer's work. He chided himself for imagining that all of Snotzenexer's breaks had come by luck or some educated guess. He had known that Snotzenexer was crooked, but like he had told Sandie Hollins earlier that week, he had not thought the Republic President was a murderer.

Now everything had changed. There was still the opportunity to stay on Snotzenexer's good side and join him when he made a move, but Ferris could no longer do that in good conscious. He had no problem serving a dictator. He did not even have a problem serving an Imperial dictator. He did have a problem serving an evil man who would stop at nothing, including taking millions of lives, just to get what he wanted.

"Will there be a new rebellion?" Ferris asked after several minutes of silence.

Jon nodded. "I'm certain there will be. How and when, I don't know. I've been out of the loop since my fighter crashed six months ago. I sincerely doubt my friends have been sitting on their hands since then, and any plan they've concocted is already underway."

Ferris nodded, trying to think how he could play a part in this. He had two motives. One was moral, though that was a very small part of it. He did not want an executioner in command for the very simple reason it made the chances of him being lined up in front of the firing squad that much more likely.

The second was he ran a very profitable business and his employees loved him. If he sided with Snotzenexer after it was made known who the President really was, that loyalty would disappear. If he did not side with Snotzenexer, his business would almost certainly be taken away from him. Snotzenexer already had a very strong hold on this system, and taking a little more would be very easy for him.

"Do you have any way of contacting your friends?" Ferris asked.

Jon shook his head. "I expected they might come for me, but they haven't."

Ferris shook his head. "If Snotzenexer was keying on your movements like you said he was, he probably has lookouts all over this system, waiting for your friends to show up again. Even if they did get past him - and they might have - finding one person on Iom, especially a homeless beggar - no offense - is next to impossible.

"The trick is now to try and find out how we can make it known who's side we're on without letting the other side know."

All three sat in silence for a while.

"What did you fly," Farion asked.

"It was a custom made ship my friends designed," Jon said. He began to scribble a crude drawing on a scrap of paper. "We called it a W-wing."

"Looks more like an 'M' to me," Farion said, looking at the drawing from across the table.

Jon quickly flipped the paper around so the ship was no longer inverted. He froze. "An M-wing," he said softly, staring at the upside-down picture of his old ship.

"Three engines instead of two," Farion said, understanding the beauty of the W-wing's design instantly and also understanding why Jon liked the idea of an M-wing. "No room for torpedo tubes if you have the central engine though."

"Don't need them, not for fighters." He looked Farion straight in the eyes. "Especially not for the advanced TIE's they have now. You wouldn't get a lock in a million years."

Farion continued to look at the scribbled drawing, realizing he was going to build it. "Where do you put the laser batteries? There's no real protected area for them."

"We never used laser batteries. Vince designed the lasers to draw energy directly from-"

"-the engines," Farion completed. The idea was simple and was in use on many different freighters. The difference was that with the freighters, there was a separate engine just dedicated to the weapons. To ask an engine to handle both propulsion and weapons meant that no matter the circumstances, the engine had to operate bellow peak capacity so that excess could always be drawn for the weapons. "Those engines would have to be incredibly efficient."

"That and you have to have a good controls system," Jon added.

"What do you mean?" Farion asked, though he had an idea what Jon was getting at.

"Linked inertia dampers to relieve the engines during moments of intense changes of momentum. Pre-programmed exponential power curves to obtain peak velocity without hitting peak acceleration. Independent throttle controls so the engines could alternate during hard acceleration. Cross linked laser cannons programmed to alternate with the engines during maximum firepower."

"Nobody could fly a ship under those conditions," Ferris interrupted, feeling Jon could go on and on.

"I think he could," Farion said, feeling a dozen more awards coming his way if he built this M-wing.

"What about the rest of our pilots?" Ferris asked. The VCY had dozens of test pilots to tryout ship modifications and evaluate new prototype models.

"They could learn, though I doubt they'd be able to master it. Still, even without taking full advantage of the fighter's capabilities, it is a vastly improved ship over what we have now."

"Then why haven't you thought of it before?" Ferris asked, half accusing, half chiding.

"The public wants aesthetics and power. This ship has neither. This M-wing and the W-wings, from what I gather, specialized in speed and precision. You don't need a powerful ship to blow up TIE, you need a fast one."

Jon kept his mouth shut. The W-wing had more power than an E-wing, and had shields that could almost repel turbo lasers. Those designs and applications would have to remain secret for now. Jon did not want to give away all Vince and Bep's secrets, besides, he did not know how all of that worked. If things went well, he would meet up with his friends again soon, and they could explain those things themselves.

Chapter 8 "Trade Secrets"

Ten days after their original meeting, Ghent, aka Quintil Harpinge, and Cog Fardin rode silently up a turbo lift. Ghent looked haggard and beaten. His tie was crooked and his shirt not firmly tucked into his pants. He had deep circles under his eyes, and his hair was tussled. Cog could imagine why. This presentation of the overhauled Trade Federation's networking system was coming four whole days earlier than originally promised. The Twi'lek had scoffed at the idea such a feat could take place in two weeks, thinking two months was still being optimistic.

Ghent actually felt better than he had in days. When he had reported to Mara after the original meeting with the Trade Federation President, he had told her he had been given a job and would need help to pull it off. The help had come in the form of Anakin Solo.

The young Jedi was getting used to being tossed around from job to job. He had originally flushed Ghent out of hiding with his computer skills and had then uncovered an ancient Sith stronghold for Wedge. The day he arrived back at the Academy, Mara sent him to Coruscant to help Ghent.

Both computer wizards had heard about each other through Mara and Wedge, and neither believed the accounts they heard. When they met for the first time, Ghent had already begun the process of rewriting the Federation network and was running into problems with his help. He had hired the best of the best, but they were not performing up to his expectations.

Anakin came onto the scene, absorbed Ghent's desires and wishes, and immediately outperformed all five of the men Ghent had hired in the first hour. The problem Anakin ran into is that he could write and decipher faster than the rest of the people could assemble the corresponding hardware and mating code.

Ghent saw that his hired help was no longer necessary and quickly down-graded their job descriptions to that of simple techs, installing and networking the upgraded equipment. Ghent still needed someone to write alongside Anakin to mate his code into the system, and Ghent took a seat in front of a keyboard for the first time in years.

The two masters felt an intense competition arise instantly. Though they were not working against each other, the rivalry was greater than that of the greatest sporting championship. Anakin wrote the source code, the portion of the system that controlled the numbers of the huge Federation. Ghent had laid out the system for him on his first day, and Anakin immediately saw the path he had to follow.

Ghent needed to mate that source code with every branch of the far-reaching Trade Federation. Since it was not feasible to visit every Federation outpost in the Republic and update their code, Ghent had to make sure that Anakin's new system compiled smoothly against existing software interfaces.

Anakin would finish a given section with a flourish to find that Ghent was still putting the final touches on his interlocking portion. The Jedi would ride the Corporate Sector legend for all he was worth, asking what was taking him so long. The two would finally mate their code only to find that in Anakin's haste, he had forgotten a vital line. The Jedi would scramble to fix his error while Ghent would get a head start on their next section. The roles would then be reversed as Ghent stood over the Jedi, cursing his slow Force skills.

The five men whom Ghent had hired watched in awe (for about 50 grand a piece) as the two men did the work of a dozen. Each was so intent on speed, their minds creating intricate shortcuts to compile subroutines down to a few lines that had previously encompassed a page, that it was laughable to think the over-hauling process would fill a week, much less two.

The final four days were spent testing the system, as well as hiding a few credit-skimming routines capable of creating millions of credits out of thin air every hour. Ghent knew what Mara and company wanted to do to the current government, and Ghent feared that if he did not turn his personal billions into trillions, he might not be able to survive the coming crash.

The doors to the turbo lift swished open revealing a massive scene of chaos. Cog Fardin distinctly remembered Ghent telling him that he was going to experience an enormous drop in employees, but nearly twice the normal human traffic buzzed about the room, scrambling between stacks of data cards and flashing computer screens. It was the 28th anniversary of the destruction of the second Death Star and a galactic holiday. The extra long weekend was the perfect time to switch the system over since no shipments were scheduled, save expedited freight.

Cog groaned as he realized that each person in the room was earning double time and a half for holiday work, but tried to gain some pleasure in the fact that it would be the last item on most of their time cards. "Can you explain what is going on Quintil?"

"Certainly," Ghent responded. "In the old system, all records of trade history were kept at the depots and outposts that completed the transaction. Those files are now being compiled into one, huge, centralized database."

"You plan to run all transactions through the main network here on Coruscant?" Cog asked frightfully, wondering if he had not made a huge mistake by entrusting his Federation to this young man.

"Not hardly," Ghent reassured him. "I am merely setting up a universal database that can be accessed by all branches of the Federation. The database will be able to do automated price negotiation and scheduling."

These were the two items that had required the most manual labor on the old system, and Cog still could not believe that they were going to be automated by Ghent's "almighty" new system. "How is that going to work exactly?"

"Let's say that you live on Iom, and your textile company has just signed a huge contract with Verpine Secrets and needs an immense supply of silk, satin, and other exotic materials for their new lingerie line. Nobody in the Varion system can get you what you need, so you put a call into the Federation branch on Iom. The computer dials up this database and accesses all of the shipments of silk since the Federation started keeping records. It instantly obtains the average profit margins on those shipments.

"The main computer here on Coruscant also has information on the location of all the Trade Federation Traders. Using the history of past shipments, the database finds the nearest TFT to the closest silk supplier to Iom. It then uploads the buying price for silk from that supplier, adds on the average shipping cost over the distance between Iom and the supplier, and finally adds on the average profit margin for silk.

"The database is capable of calculating this information in a fraction of a second after receiving the request from Iom. The price is relayed back to the Federation office on Iom and then given to the customer. If the price is rejected, the database uses the standard deviation of the previous shipments to adjust the price in the customer's favor. If the adjustment results in a price that is no longer acceptable from the Federation's standpoint, the request is denied.

"Since you don't want Verpine Secrets to go elsewhere, you will accept the price, knowing that it is the cheapest price possible. Since averages are used, you will always make a profit. The reason for this is that it is impossible to have a positive spike while negative ones are common in the system."

"What do you mean by that?" Cog asked, having followed the system thus far.

"Let's say that the nearest world to Iom that can meet your fabric needs is 35 light years away. Unless the TFT finds an unknown wormhole or has a Jedi calculate his hyperspace route, he will not be able to cut any time off his route. Some ships have better hyperdrives than others do, but not to such an extent that they will show up as spikes, just slight increases.

"By spike, I mean an anomaly. All you care about are profit margins. A positive spike is when the cost of the shipment is far less than expected and the profit margin is very high. Like I said, this is not likely to happen.

"While it is next to impossible to have a positive spike, negative ones are all too common. Anything from a hyperdrive malfunction to pilot illness to theft can slow a shipment. Most averages are compiled off a normal distribution and contain some extreme highs and lows while most of the values hang around the middle. In this system, the negative spikes without any positive ones to offset them mean that all of the averages will be on the high side."

"Yes," Cog agreed, "but won't the negative spikes in the system eliminate any profit gained from the inflated estimate. You are working with the laws of averages here, if you make a dozen extra credits on a hundred shipments, and then loose 1200 on one, aren't you coming out even?"

"Not in all cases," Ghent replied, ready for the question. "Spikes will appear in more than just the shipping aspect of a sale. Supplier prices will also see spikes. If a local shortage of a requested cargo takes place, you will see an inflated price, giving you a negative spike. However, if you have a local surplus, the local price might go down to offset previous spike, but since a local surplus does not create a galactic surplus, the supplier will likely keep his price in line with the galactic rate, taking a large profit in the process. If the Federation can't find another supplier not suffering from a shortage near enough to the shipping destination, it will be forced to take a hit. Like you said, such a loss will be compensated for by an increased average in the system and will be made up over time.

"However, in shipping, negative time spikes do not correlate into losses for the Federation. Customers are billed a shipping cost according to the amount of time we are required to store their product in transit. If we are shipping gourmet meat and require a special freighter to transport it, the longer we hold it, the longer we put ourselves at risk of theft or spoilage. Plus that special freighter is tied up for a given amount of time that should be billed to the customer. On the other hand, a TFT is paid by the light-year, not by the hour. Because of this, any delay, unless it is the result of a space warp that increases the distance between the supplier and customer, will not result in increased cost to us, just an increase to the customer."

Cog Fardin was quickly loosing any early doubts he had had about Ghent's abilities. "How will the database be able to handle special shipments?"

"Expedites will operate on their own averages. With a normal shipment the database is able to shop around. If a supplier further away from the customer has a price that is low enough to still make using them profitable, even with the extra shipping cost, the database can use that supplier. With an expedite, the closest supplier, regardless of the cost is chosen, and there is no negotiation with the customer. Also each ship in the Federation has classification codes. The hyperdrives, cargo holds, weapon systems, and even pilot skill are all given ratings by that ship's Trade Rep. The database uses these ratings if it has to choose between two ships for any given shipment. It also uses these codes to find the nearest capable ship. If the closest ship's cargo hold isn't big enough, the database has to keep looking."

Cog and Ghent were wandering through the huge floor of the Federation building on Coruscant, dodging the hurried individuals and often getting bumped around by lowly gofers without the slightest hint of an apology. Cog continued to ask a few more questions but barely listen to the answers, happy that there were answers and not really caring what they were.

After almost an hour amidst the chaos, they retired to Cog's office. "So what is it going to take to run this system once the database compilation is completed?" Cog asked after they were both seated with drinks.

"Very little," Ghent replied. "I am going to send some of your better people and the few I've hired out to each of the major branches in the Varion, Corellian, Calamarian, and Detsgor systems and the fringes of the Corporate Sector to automate those branches, allowing electronic requests. After that, I'll keep my people here to help me watch over the system, ensuring no foul-ups. We've done numerous simulations on the system and I'm sure it is flawless, but there will have to be some manual input when we take on the drug trade from Snotzenexer's administration.

"Since the system runs off a history to obtain averages and we will take on dozens of cargo that have no history, we will need to monitor the price negotiations to ensure a one time shipment between neighboring planets isn't used to calculate the profit margin for a shipment that spans half the galaxy.

"Beyond that, the system should run itself. I wouldn't close the door to the mainframe and throw away the key, but I foresee little maintenance. At the same time, I and maybe one other will stay on full time to make sure the system runs at peak performance. There are a few upgrades that I allowed to be added later, depending on factors I didn't have experience with."

"Such as?"

"I didn't give the cargo classification ratings. For example, food, construction material, and computer components will make up the majority of all shipments. However, when calculating acceptable price reductions for a tight customer, the database treats all cargo the same. Since the afore mentioned shipments are shipped so often, it is feasible to accept a few low profit margins because they will be made up quickly. Each cargo has its own history, so if we accepted a lower profit margin on a infrequently shipped item, it will have a bigger impact on the overall average."

Cog understood and agreed that he wouldn't even know where to begin with that one. He could also imagine other improvements that could be made down the road. He was sure Ghent had thought of everything he could and more. There was just one thing left to talk about. "What about money?"

"You will make a lot."

"I mean you. You said that you would stay on full time after start up. Unless you were planning on offering your services free of charge, I assume you will be drawing a salary."

"Let's see," Ghent said slowly, as if doing the math in his head. "By the time my people have finished with all the major branches, I will have eliminated the need for over 560 employees. I figure I'm entitled to at least 30% of the surplus."

"You want to make as much as 168 of my employees combined?" Cog exclaimed, not sure if he should be outraged.

"You're right," Ghent said. "Might as well make it a round number. How does 150 sound?"

The average salary of his employees was around 50 thousand a year. Before Cog yelled at Ghent for requesting 7.5 million a year for minor maintenance, he put the number into perspective. Ghent was leaving over 70% of the surplus for the Trade Federation to absorb, plus he had eliminated the need to hire about 200 more employees when they took over the health and drug administration's shipping requirements. Not only that, but Ghent was worth over 500 billion, though if he liquidated that into actual credits it would come out to about 100 billion hard currency. For this man to ask for only 7.5 million, a salary reduction of about 100,000%, was really a steal.

Of course Cog doubted that the Trade Federation would be his only means of income. He was still the CEO of his old software business, and all of his many investments would still draw huge sums for him every month. Still, Cog decided to agree to the requested salary. If the maintenance on the system was truly as low as Ghent suggested, Cog could always fire Ghent in the future.

It was at that moment that Cog realized what he had done. He had just turned the entire operation of the Trade Federation into the hands of one man. Cog could never fire him. He was the only one who understood the system he had created, and if he ever wanted to sabotage it, it would impossible for anyone to stop him. Maybe Cog would offer him 15 million a year, just to be safe.

***

Thomas sat down in front of the com unit. He checked his chrono and punched in a predetermined frequency. He waited patiently for the com unit to connect him with the net's server.

"You have requested a public communication line," a droid operator told him. "For an extra five credits a minute you may make this line secure and all callers will require voice recognition before acceptance into the call." It was expensive, but Thomas keyed in to accept the charges.

"You are the first caller into the conference line," the droid continued. "The other callers will be required to announce themselves upon arrival and will be subject to your acceptance before they may enter the public line."

Mara had gotten them this line. The com conferencing system was normally used for businessmen who did not want to travel light-years to attend meetings. Instead they could gather a dozen or so associates from across the galaxy onto a conference call. There were holo conference services as well, but the com unit Thomas was using did not support multiple images and those calls were much more expensive.

"Mara Jade." Mara's voice came over the com.

Thomas quickly keyed in her acceptance to the call. "How are things on Yavin IV, Mara?"

"How do you know that's where I am?" She queried.

Thomas was on Torenick using one of the TBC's com stations. Borrel had shown Leia and Thomas around and also showed them which pieces of equipment belonged to him and which ones they could use. This com unit was one of the latest models and had a lot of interesting features. Included in those features was a trace program to identify callers. "Caller ID," Thomas replied.

"Oh," Mara replied, hardly believing him. "I have Wedge and Anakin with me."

"Hello, gentlemen," Thomas said into the com. Wedge and Anakin gave their responses, and the group waited for more to join.

"Han Solo."

Thomas' com unit showed that Han was on the move somewhere near the Corellian Sector. "How are things, Han?"

"I'm holding together, Thomas. I've got Luke here with me. Chewie's off making sure the hyperdrive doesn't clunk out on us. I've got a shipment of expensive linen for Carst 7."

"Sounds terribly exciting," Mara said dryly.

"Well it's not illegal spice," Han admitted, "but it pays the bills."

"Is anyone else going to join?" Luke asked, recognizing three different locations so far, and not sensing a fourth.

"I gave Ghent the frequency, but he is probably too busy to call in."

"How did that go?" Han asked, referring to their plan to have Ghent control the Trade Federation. The idea had seemed ludicrous to Han at first. Just waltzing into the Trade Federation and asking to be given control of Snotzenexer's most important stronghold seemed too crazy to even be contemplated, but by all reports, it had not only happened, but Cog Fardin had paid good money to make it happen.

"Ghent has had the system up and running for only a few days, but there doesn't seem to be any glitches yet," Mara reported.

"So we have control?" Han asked.

"Hold on Solo," Mara said quickly. "Don't go abusing the system. I'm transferring the frequency to Ghent's personal com unit to everyone right now, but do not over use this resource. He is only to be contacted in dire need. I don't know how quickly Fardin and Snotzenexer will be in picking up on our trickery and we don't want to push our luck."

"There's no such thing as luck," Luke said solemnly.

Mara could not see Luke's face, and had no idea the Jedi Master was restraining laughter. Luke had said it just to raise Mara's ire and not out of any true conviction. It worked.

Thomas cut in. "I agree with Mara. Don't use the Trade Federation unless you have to." He paused for a few seconds to let everyone know he was about to change topics. "Han, what is the general feeling among the traders?"

"They're pretty happy, though I can't imagine why. There are a few old fossils like myself who made a living back in Imperial days smuggling contraband, but most of these fools think the TF is the best thing since diced corda bread. Still, I think I might have had some affect on overall morale."

"You do have that affect on people," Mara put in quickly.

"I've been pointing out a lot of unfair policies and regulations that the TF incorporates. I've talked to a lot of people and they all agree that changes would be good, but they aren't going to do anything under my command. It's going to take someone who isn't as obviously biased to stir up any action. Most of my old buddies would have the influence needed, but don't have any desire to start a type of union yet. They are too independent at heart and would much rather break the rules than try to have them changed."

Thomas nodded, understanding what Han was talking about. He made a couple notes and moved on. "How about our ship situation?" he directed a question at Wedge.

"It's better," the former Republic Admiral responded. "We still have no capitol ships, but were able to acquire a couple dozen V-38's."

Thomas knew about the Imperial prototype weapons and was greatly impressed with the find.

"Right now we are working on the ships to modify and update them. Hey Han," Wedge interrupted his own report, "you wouldn't happen to have several dozen MAM adapters lying around the Falcon, would you?"

"Matter to anit-matter adapters?" Han asked. "No, I don't have any that I can spare, and I can't think of anywhere we could afford to get some without drawing considerable attention to ourselves. All the suppliers of MAM adapters are registered with local military, most of which are allied with the Republic."

"That's what I thought," Wedge replied. "Thought I'd try anyway. Just keep your eyes open."

Thomas made a few more notes. "I just want everyone to know what's going on at our end. Leia's off making a separate call right now to an old friend in the senate, trying to dig up a little evidence against Snotzenexer. At the same time, I've teamed up with a holo-film director here on Torenick, and we are preparing to publicize a news bulletin outlining some of Snotzenexer's misdeeds. Depending on the publication's acceptance, more reports will follow with increasing seriousness.

"Han, you will no doubt be question about some of the claims by your associates and maybe employers. As far as they're concerned, you have no idea who's submitting the reports."

"Gotcha," Han replied.

"The rest of you can supply me with any additional information you might stumble across that I can use. Other than that, I don't know if there is anything else we need to discuss." Thomas waited for someone to speak up. No one did. "We'll talk again in a week." With that Thomas severed the connection.

The former Imperial Captain paused in thought for several minutes and then quickly punched in another frequency. He waited a few seconds while the connection was made, and then a few more for the other end to pick up.

"Solo here."

"Han, this is Thomas."

"Hey, didn't we just talk?"

"Yes, but I wanted to ask you a few questions without Mara on the line."

On the other end of the line, Han grinned. He liked this man more and more every day. "What do you need?"

"You said that the younger traders would be more receptive to your petitions if someone else from the old school took up the cause. Did you have anyone particular in mind?"

Han recalled the sabacc game he had played with Derran Speedsting. He was hot-tempered and irritable, but he was also very well respected among the other traders. If Derran ever had a change of heart and decided to join Han's cause, many more would follow. "Yea, I got someone in mind. What are you planning?"

"I have an idea to solve everyone's problems at once." He explained his idea to Han. Han gave Thomas all the information he needed, and after about five minutes, Thomas ended the call.

Thomas messed around with a few figures and dates, made two more calls, and left the com room for the day, confident his plan would start the big ball rolling in the direction they needed to go. Thomas could not worry about it for too long. He needed to write a news report that was going to be submitted in about four hours.

***

Leia was sitting in front of a different com station on Torenick. This one was a holo-com unit.

"Hello, Senator Cariasco here," the other end responded.

As was usually the case when receiving unannounced holo messages, Senator Evlyn Cariasco was not sending a visual. Leia was. "Evlyn, It's good to talk to you again."

Senator Cariasco quickly switched on her visual, and the two old friends looked at each other for the first time in over six months. "Leia, how are you holding up?"

Leia smiled, glad that her friend still had positive emotions for her. Evlyn had been one of the many former Leia supporters who had voted for her dismissal and then for Snotzenexer's appointment to the office of president. Leia did not blame these senators for their actions. Snotzenexer had built a very convincing case against her, and Leia imagined she would have reacted the same way if she had been in the senate without the vital facts.

"I'm doing well," Leia responded.

"So, to what do I owe this unexpected call?"

"I was wondering," Leia began, trying to sound innocent, "are you still the chairperson of the investigative committee?"

Evlyn paused before answering. "Yes." Evlyn knew that Leia did not trust Snotzenexer and was hoping that this call would not get into dragging down the very well liked and greatly respected president.

"I was wondering how the investigation into the accident on Xentin was going. I haven't heard any public releases on the investigation yet and was wondering if there were any."

It took Evlyn a painful few moments of concentration to even remember where Xentin was or why it needed to be investigated. Then she remembered. MCX had been the company that had defaulted on its loan and had started the cascade of events that led to Snotzenexer's election. The Mining Corporation on Xentin had suffered a catastrophic natural disaster that had killed hundreds and left the company totally destroyed.

The investigation Leia was asking about had never taken place, but it should have. When the Republic had set up a system to offer governments and corporations financial aid to rebuild after years of Imperial oppression, they had also entered a clause into the bill that should any recipient of such aid default on the payments, an official investigation was to be carried out to find the reason for the failure. This way the Republic would be able to learn from their failed investments and make better decisions in the future.

The reason this investigation had never taken place was because the entire galaxy's financial, political, and social structure had been turned upside down and inside out. In the process, many other loans were canceled automatically defaulting the loan recipients. During the clean up, the MCX situation was simply lumped in with the rest of the canceled loans and was disregarded.

In reality, there was still a datacard sitting in someone's filing cabinet that needed a signature to officially close out the MCX affair. That signature was supposed to be made by Evlyn after the investigation came to a close and a reason for default was given. In this case, the reason was obvious. There had been a natural disaster. The investigation could consist of just looking at the headlines in the newsstands and believing what was there.

Evlyn had half a mind to tell Leia that the investigation had turned up nothing new, and the file had been closed months ago. She could then go down to her clerk's office, sign the data file, and officially close the affair. On the other hand, Leia was not stupid. She had made quite a few rash accusations against Snotzenexer during the first month of his presidency, but since then, not much had been heard from the former president. Now for her to question the validity of a natural disaster some seven months old seemed very odd.

Actually, conducting the investigation would almost be as simple as faking it. The investigation committee had several field teams at their disposal, none of which were busy, and were wasting tax payers' money sitting idle. She could make a call, and a team of four investigators would be on Xentin in less than three days. They would snoop around, drill a few holes in the disaster site, confirm that it was a natural volcanic eruption, and Evlyn could close the file with a clean conscious.

"The results of that investigation are not in yet," Evlyn said truthfully. "We were waiting for the excitement around the disaster site to calm down. Many people died in that accident and we didn't want to start drilling holes in the mass grave while families were still morning. Because of the wait, we kind of put it on the back burner and forgot about it. Now that you brought it to my attention, I think I will close it out."

Evlyn paused. "Why, may I ask, are you interested in it?"

"I was just curious," Leia responded quite honestly. Of all the atrocities she and her friends were accusing Snotzenexer for, the accident on Xentin was the only one for which they had absolutely no proof. "The incident occurred while I was still president, and I wanted to make sure all the files that had been opened during my term were being taken care of."

"I appreciate your concern and if we turn up anything unusual, I'll be sure to give you a call."

"Thanks, Evlyn." With that, Leia closed the connection.

***

Lando looked across the table at the Trade Federation evaluator. "You don't understand, Lorthabal. My crystals are of the highest quality in the entire galaxy, but I have to compete with other miners who are producing subpar refractors at a fraction of my cost. The Federation doesn't have the proper classification system yet."

Knet Lorthabal looked at Lando as if he had grown a third ear. Lando tried to mimic the look back at his guest, but the alien already had three ears, and knowing his race's genetic tendencies, it was more than likely that Lorthabal was working on a fourth even as they were speaking.

"I still don't see how you are special, Calrissian," he argued, hissing Lando's last name with his forked tongue "None of the other industrial crystal suppliers have complained about our classification system yet."

"That's because the system only hurts the high quality crystal suppliers like myself, and there aren't many others like me." Lando took a deep breath, trying to think of some other way he could explain his problem.

He had returned to his asteroid mine six months ago after seeing that any rebellion his friends were planing would take more time than he could spend away from work. He had lost Trince, and was still a little confused as to what had gone wrong with his Jedi employee, but he still had Yova, the second Jedi student Luke had given him almost a year ago.

Lando had registered with the Trade Federation two months ago when his mine finally started to produce a significant supply of crystals. It was definitely the best way to do business, with ships arriving every two weeks to haul away massive amounts of high quality crystals. Lando was turning an enormous profit but still was not happy.

Lando looked down at a data pad as he spoke. "You have only one classification for grain," Lando said, trying to give the slow-witted Lorthabal a clear example. "That's because there is only one type of grain." Lando was scrolling through the list of products the Trade Federation dealt in. "You have only one classification for power couplings. You have two different classifications for nerf, ground and steak. You have several hundred classifications for wine.

"Would it make any sense for you to only have one classification for wine? Of course not. Nobody just orders wine; they order a specific type of wine. It wouldn't make any sense for you to sell Alderaanian port for the same price that you sell Corellian blood wine. Why, one bottle of any Alderaanian wine costs as much as a lifetime supply of the best Corellian wine. It's the same with crystals."

"You want us to make a hundred different classifications of crystals for you so you can sell your crystals at a price ten times what it is now," Lorthabal said slowly.

Yes, Lando thought. "No," he said, "you only have to classify about three or four different grades of crystals, in three different categories."

"And who is going to make these classifications? You?"

Yes, Lando thought again. "No, of course not. I know several crystal experts who can visit your different suppliers and classify each of their products."

"At our cost, no doubt."

"At no cost to you. Most of these experts work for companies that purchase crystals from your suppliers and I'm sure they want to make sure your system allows them to order exactly what they want. If someone wants to order high strength crystals for the high compression drill bits they're building, and they use your current system, they have no way of knowing what they're getting. If I'm the closest supplier, they'll be getting a great crystal for their price, but they can just as easily be getting a product from someone using carbon powder compression methods to synthesize crystals. In your current system, both groups of crystals would be purchased for the same price, but one group is a hundred times better."

Lando paused in his exposition, seeing that he was finally having a slight effect on his thick skinned (literally - three centimeters thick) guest. "This will be a big bonus to you. Not only will you reduce the number of complaints from companies that received the wrong type of crystals, but by using the current price range for the base level crystals, and increasing the price for each advancing classification level, you will increase profit margins."

"It sounds good, Calrissian." Lorthabal's face brightened considerably when he heard the words "increase profit margins." His pay raises depended solely on the amount he could increase profit margins. As long as Lando was not pulling a fast one on the slow Trade Federation evaluator, with his next raise Lorthabal would be able to afford to by nice presents for all 73 of his offspring's birthdays this year.

"Why don't I give you the names of a few men who would be willing to work up the classification system for you. I'll nee-" Lando was interrupted as beeper went off on his belt. Lando reacted quickly, switching off the device with a practiced flick of his arm.

Lorthabal reacted to the noise also, and had a huge, ugly blaster leveled at Lando before the former gambler knew what was going on. Lando was shocked that anyone could be that mind bogglingly stupid. "Uh," he stuttered, "it's just a pager," Lando said. Apparently Lorthabal still was not clear that a pager was not a weapon. "My people are telling me I have an incoming message in our communication building."

Lando stood very slowly. The business end of Lorthabal's weapon followed him just as slowly. The big alien could now see that Lando was not wearing a blaster of any kind, and the heinous noisemaker that Lando had called a "pager" was only the size of his non-opposable thumb. Lorthabal slowly put his weapon away.

"I need to get this call. In the meantime, make yourself at home. There are drinks in the thermal bin in the corner and a wide variety of snacks in the cupboards. I'll be back in about 15 minutes with the names and frequencies of a few people you can call about the classification system."

Lando left the small building he had had built for meetings with customers and was wondering if he should've left the phrase "make yourself at home" out of his speech. He could always build another hut. Lando walked along the leveled pathway that connected the constantly growing number of sheds and buildings that littered the surface of the asteroid. A while back, the Empire had paid his business a visit and had leveled most of the buildings, destroying much of the equipment in the process. He had dumped in a lot of his own money to rebuild and had not been disappointed in the results.

He walked into the communications building and was greeted by Jalence and Herta. "You've got a message coming in from a Thomas Thorin," Herta told him. Lando had meet Thomas briefly before he had left to come back to this asteroid. He was an Imperial Captain that had been exiled to Hoth over 30 years ago. He had somehow managed to survive and had run into Luke during the Jedi Master's brief stay on the planet. Mara and Anakin had rescued both and now Thomas was taking control of most of the strategy planning for the group of would be rebels.

Lando sat in front of the holo com unit and keyed in the call. "Hi, Thomas. It's been a long time. What do you need?" Lando had no doubt that this call was going to end with a request.

"I have a very odd request for your services, Lando."

Twenty minutes later, a very confused Lando Calrissian reentered the building containing the moody Lorthabal. Lando was not surprised to see that half of his food stores had been consumed and a good portion of his alcohol. This building was just for guests, and Lando was glad it contained none of the food for his employees.

"What's wrong, Calrissian?" Lorthabal asked, seeing the troubled look on Lando's face. "A disturbing call?"

Lando looked at the mess the alien had left and quickly saw he could blame his mood on what his guest had done with Lando's gesture of hospitality. Instead, Lando shrugged his shoulders at the question. "Here are the names of a few people you should contact," Lando said as he tossed a datacard onto the table in front of the reclining Trade Federation employee.

Lorthabal saw that the meeting was over and was just beginning to realize what kind of mess he had made. "Well, it's been nice doing business with you, Calrissian. If you have any other concerns, don't hesitate to contact us." Lando shook the large, four-fingered hand and nodded at the stout alien. With out further display, Lorthabal left the building and went to his ship.

Lando sat at the table and cracked open one of the drink cans Lorthabal had not gotten to. He downed half the can in his first few gulps and winced as the powerful liquid scorched his throat and stomach. He suppressed a belch and tried to think about what Thomas had just told him. Finally he got up and walked over to a com unit set in the wall.

"Mansenchin," Lando called his right-hand man.

"Yea," the powerful man responded quickly through the com.

"I need you to come to the guest hut right away. And bring Yova with you."

"What is it boss?" Mansenchin asked, sensing trouble in his employer's voice.

"You're not going to believe this, Mans, but we need to make a pirate attack in three days."

"A pirate attack? I can't wait to have this explained."

"Neither can I," Lando agreed.

Chapter 9 "Indirect Accusations"

Snotzenexer sat in his senate chamber reading the report very slowly. It was an independent publication that had come across the news wire. There were hundreds of independent news organizations that tried to get put into the main news stream but few had the know-how, and even fewer had the content. This publication had both.

Snotzenexer could not read all the news reports each day, but he had set up his computer to present him with the reports that included several key words or phrases that Snotzenexer had put into a search device. This independent report contained almost all of his key phrases and a few more he would have to add to his search.

The report was careful not to make any direct accusations, and Snotzenexer admired that. If this had come from who he thought it had, they were showing very clever restraint. The report started out very bland, outlining some of the drugs included in Snotzenexer's health plan. The first crops were already rolling in, and the report gave the statistics on the biggest ones.

Bacta was first on the list, as could be expected, and many others followed. Towards the end, an almost unheard of bacterium was listed. "Prolanstina," the report said, "is a bacteria that rarely occurs naturally. The bacteria expels a much higher oxygen concentration than most plant life and its only medical use has been in the manufacturing of prolan gas, a strong hallucinogenic. Prolan gas was used by many primitive cultures as a pain sedative, but the severe hallucinations it causes has made it illegal in most advanced medical societies."

Snotzenexer smiled at the well-crafted report. No where did it accuse Snotzenexer of manufacturing prolan gas, or even that he planned on manufacturing it. It only laid out the facts and let the reader decide what to think. Before continuing with the report, Snotzenexer made a call to one of his assistants. He could handle this issue if it came up in the senate today, but he would need a little help. He read on.

The report then moved to several issues with the Trade Federation. Again it did not accuse the Federation of treating its traders unfairly, it merely laid out all of the guidelines and rules the traders must obey. It did mention a few negative issues, such as the absence of bonuses for carrying valuable cargo, or the lack of a credit line for maintenance charges, but it did so in a very straight forward manner.

Finally the report talked about Admiral Sanson, his wife. Snotzenexer had told himself many times that when Sanson was attacked he would not get overly protective, just as she should not when he was under fire. Like before, Sanson was not directly attacked in the report. It stated that she was a former Imperial and had been hiding in the Varion system for an undetermined time. The report's use of the word "undetermined" when Sanson had publicly stated she had been hiding for ten years caught Snotzenexer's attention. The fact that the report decided to leave the time frame open indirectly accused Sanson of lying. The report went on to outline the last known Imperial activity in the Danzig system.

Snotzenexer turned off his monitor. The publication would cause problems. He could see that this was going to be a regular publication for the simple fact that he knew his enemies knew much more than they had told so far. They were going to release these news reports slowly, letting the public gradually begin to doubt their leader before the reports got serious.

For the first time in a year, Snotzenexer was worried. He was not exactly sure what the rebels knew, but he was sure they could accurately guess at everything. Guesses would not hold up in an official report though, and Snotzenexer could not be sure exactly how much of his actions had been uncovered.

After the senate, Snotzenexer would have to accelerate some of his plans. He needed to nip this publication in the butt before it got out of hand.

***

Snotzenexer gazed out from his central senate box. His floating dais was located in the center of the huge senate chamber, both vertically and concentricly. The other senators occupied their own boxes, hundreds of them connected to the cylindrical wall of the chamber. The chamber was far too large to give everyone the same view, so several holograms of the center debate were projected above and below Snotzenexer's station so everyone could see the proceedings.

Any senator who wished to have the floor needed to be in the center area. All of the senate boxes were detachable from the wall and could move up and down the center of the chamber. The boxes in the center area of the chamber were reserved for committee chairmen and senior senators.

Snotzenexer spent a brief moment looking about at the complex variety of faces looking at him before turning to the agenda. He knew what some of them must be thinking. The report he had read before entering this session had definitely reached many other senators, and now doubts were spreading through the chamber. Snotzenexer would put those doubts to rest.

The agenda consisted of a listing of bills and legislature that were to be discussed during this session. Before getting to the normal legislature, though, each session always started with a brief discussion of current events and concerns. During the extensive remodeling the Republic was experiencing, the senate had decided to spend the first half hour discussing any recent news or events before moving to the more tedious proceedings that took up the majority of their time.

It was in this opening that Snotzenexer expected the attack. He was right.

"President Snotzenexer," Senator Holmsted, an alien senator from a musty, swamp-filled world began, "some of my fellow senators and I have been looking over the particulars of your health plan. As I'm sure you're well aware of, that plan, conceived almost seven months ago, is only now coming into fruition due to the long crop life of most of the chemicals and drugs included in the plan."

Senator Holmsted paused as he collected his thoughts and the senate's attention. Almost everyone already knew where this was going. "When looking down the long list of pharmaceuticals being collected, I noticed that there is a very large amount of prolanstina."

Snotzenexer said nothing. He had a very famous history of not offering any additional information during a debate. He only answered direct questions and never elaborated unless asked. This made it very hard for people to back him into corners, yet they still tried.

"Do you deny that your health organization has been collecting an extremely large amount of prolanstina?"

The question sounded silly, but since Snotzenexer was not going to speak unless spoken to, it needed to be asked. "No," the president responded.

"There is only one use for this little known bacteria." Snotzenexer remained silent. "What do you plan to do with this prolanstina?"

"Make prolan gas," Snotzenexer replied.

"You plan to make-" You plan to make prolan gas, is what Holmsted was about to say, but Snotzenexer had quite unexpectedly already admitted to the accusation. Holmsted faltered. "Do you know that prolan gas is a hallucinogenic?"

"Yes," Snotzenexer replied.

Holmsted was stumped. He had in front of him a list of purchases Snotzenexer's health organization had made. The list showed that several machines used for producing prolan gas had been bought by the health organization. There were large storage tanks for the gas as well as gas freighters for transportation. The senator also had lots of medical reports on the negative effects of prolan gas and several ordinances banning the use of the gas as a medical sedative.

Holmsted had planned to run down his evidence list in front of the senate, forcing Snotzenexer to confess to producing an illegal substance, no doubt for an extra profit. Instead, the President of the Republic had freely admitted to the crime. If there was a confession, the trial seemed insane.

Snotzenexer looked at the confused senator for several long seconds. "Do you have anything more, Senator?" Snotzenexer asked.

The next question should have been, "What do you plan to do with it?" but Holmsted was too wrapped up in what he had not said to figure out what he should say. He shook his head slowly.

Snotzenexer realized that some other senators might pick up the chase where Holmsted had left off, and quickly moved on to the next topic. The next item was a proposal to set up a senate oversight committee to look into the Trade Federation's employee contracts and determine if the organization needed to be regulated by a special committee.

If such a special committee were to be set up, it would mean a lot of extra work for quite a few senators, but since the senate as a whole felt like they had just been handed a crushing defeat on the previous topic, the motion was quickly passed and several senators spoke up to be placed on the oversight committee.

The senators loved Snotzenexer. They did not like being useless. Snotzenexer had brought incredible wealth and prosperity to the Republic since he had been elected into office. He had accomplished almost all of this by himself. It had been his bank that had jumped in and saved the Republic from financial ruin. It had been his wife (although they had not known it at the time) and her Star Destroyers that had helped bolster the Republic Navy at a time when it was suffering from lack of leadership and manpower. It had been his money that had started the new Trade Federation and health organization. Snotzenexer had had all the answers and while he operated within a senate, it seemed like he did not need one.

This oversight committee seemed like a good way to bring some of that lost control back into the senate. Snotzenexer might have created the Trade Federation, but the senate would regulate it. Several senators had half a mind to create a similar committee to oversee the health organization, especially after this revelation that it was creating an illegal drug. This committee probably would have been created, if it were not for the next item on the agenda.

Within each senate box were several other individuals besides the actual senator. Each senator had a secretary; some had two. There were aids, clerks, and assistance that often crowded into the small repulsar pads. Snotzenexer turned to someone else in his box for the next item.

"Lieutenant Kronsbin will now give an update on the rescue efforts in the Denorid system."

These updates happened once a week, and once Snotzenexer saw the report that included the prolan gas information, he made sure the update took place today. The Denorid system had been ravished with asteroids nearly a year ago, and while Snotzenexer had been responsible for the doomsday attack, he had also poured an enormous amount of resources into the rescue and aid effort.

Lieutenant Kronsbin moved toward the senate box's microphone and began his report. "The last survivors on Forinad have been evacuated to the orbiting modified Star Galleons, bringing the rescued total from Forinad to just over 5.7 million. The planet's oceans have now completely frozen over and although Republic scientists have been working a round the clock to devise a way to clean the ash cloud that covers the planet, the surface won't be fertile again for at least a hundred years after the thaw.

"The planned relocation efforts have been delayed, though, as a result of a very successful experiment in Trewist's atmosphere. Republic scientists have been able to successfully replicate a portion of Trewist's ozone layer." Trewist had suffered the least of the three inhabitable planets in the Denorid system. Denor had suffered the worst, receiving the largest amount of asteroids and had been the most densely populated. Also, because of Denor's unusually fast revolution speed, there was very little of the planet's surface that did not see some asteroid devastation. It, like Forinad, had been cast into an ice age.

Trewist had been the last planet to receive asteroids, and because of the extra time, the Republic rescue team led by Wedge had been able to reduce the rocks in size so that eighty percent of them burned up in the atmosphere. Though very little reached the surface and none of it was very big, the ozone layer had been destroyed and global temperatures on the planet in the past year had nearly doubled. The polar caps on Trewist were half way from being completely melted and very little life was left outside of the planet's arctic circles, where the temperatures were still tolerable.

"The scientists plan on continuing their ozone replication efforts and predict that Trewist will be fully repaired and capable of supporting life within two seasons."

"Excuse me," a senior senator spoke up. "How are you replicating ozone?"

"The Republic scientist are injecting an oxygenating gas into the planet's atmosphere, and with the use of modified ion cannons and a stabilizing agent consisting of nitrogen and carbon, they are able to stimulate ozone creation. Normal oxygen exists as an O2 molecule. Ozone is an allotropic form of oxygen having three atoms in each molecule: O3. It is a pale blue, highly poisonous gas with a strong odor. Ozone boils at 111.9° C, melts at -192.5° C, and has a specific gravity of 2.144. Liquid ozone is a deep blue, strongly magnetic liquid. Ozone is formed when an electric spark is passed through oxygen."

"Thank-you for the science lesson," the senior senator responded, "but hasn't ozone replication been attempted before on industrialized planets and failed? If it were just as simple as inducing an electric spark through oxygen, we would have done it a long time ago."

"Very true, senator," the Lieutenant responded. "It is much more difficult to reproduce a planet's entire natural ozone layer than it is to produce a small amount of isolated ozone. The ozone layer is a region of the atmosphere 19 to 48 km above a planet's surface. Ozone concentrations of up to 10 parts per million occur in the ozone layer. The ozone forms there naturally by the action of sunlight on oxygen. This action has been taking place for the entire life of a planet, but naturally occurring nitrogen compounds in the atmosphere keep the ozone concentration at a fairly stable level. The problem arises when the upper atmosphere is stripped of oxygen, as was the case with Trewist. The Republic scientists needed to find a way to oxygenate the planet's atmosphere in a very concentrated manner."

"And what did they use for an oxygenating gas?" the senator asked, though he thought he already knew.

"Prolan gas, sir."

The chamber was immediately filled with harsh whispers of "See I told you so." The senate had, just minutes before, been given information that painted their president as an illegal drug dealer. Most had doubted the accusations, but even the staunchest of Snotzenexer's supporters had become worried that their president might be flawed. Now they were more certain than ever that he was not. Not only was he using the gas for a very noble use, but also he was obviously very well versed in areas of science that most of the senators did not know existed.

The senate had just taken a little power away from Snotzenexer by appointing a committee to oversee his created Trade Federation, but as the young Lieutenant finished his report, they were reminded why their president had been given the reigns in the first place.

***

Thomas Thorin watched the proceedings with mixed emotions. He did not chide himself for not seeing that use for prolan gas, for the experiment was likely the first of its kind ever. Thomas also realized that he had underestimated Snotzenexer and had made a mistake. The collection of prolanstina had been done very publicly. The health organization had sanctioned farmers on many different worlds to grow the bacteria and the records were there for all to see.

Snotzenexer was not stupid enough to leave something so potentially illegal out in the open. While Snotzenexer still might have some devious plan for the prolan gas, he had left it out for his enemies to find and accuse him of so he could very effectively end the debate on the subject. No one would ever question Snotzenexer's collection of prolanstina or any other potentially illegal substance.

Thomas also realized why Snotzenexer had been putting so much effort into saving the planets in the Denorid system. It had not made sense before, but now Thomas understood. Snotzenexer had killed billions of people to gain power and then saved millions of them so he could justify the collection of a strong hallucinogenic. This wanton treatment of life for personal gain made Thomas sick to his stomach. At the same time, it taught Thomas a very valuable lesson: do not underestimate Snotzenexer.

***

"Borrel Curtis! Good to see you. Come in, come in."

Borrel walked slowly into Cayron Moall's office. The senior producer spared no expense toward his office, and Borrel looked around enviously. The lowly director had no idea why the most important producer at Torenick Broadcasting Company wanted to see him, but he bet part of it was so that Borrel could see what kind of office Cayron worked out of. The two had been fierce competitors back when Borrel worked for Porylen Entertainment Network, but after the terrorist attack on PEN's home office Borrel had been forced to swallow his pride and work for the TBC.

"Come in and have a seat, Borrel. Would you like a drink or something to eat?"

Borrel shook his head, taking a seat in front of the senior producer's immense desk. "Have you gotten a chance to look at the net reports? There's some interesting stuff out there." Cayron tossed a datapad toward Borrel.

The director picked it up and glanced at it. The report about the prolan gas was the current entry. "Yea, I saw it," Borrel spoke finally. He had been the one who had submitted it to the net in the first place.

"There's some really great stuff in that report there," Cayron said excitedly. The producer had been in a very good mood this entire week. His Snotzenexer documentary had just begun to air, and it had topped out in just about every rating chart. The documentary was planned to air for five days, but the TCB was already scrambling to try and add more so they could keep it going for eight. They were also working on language translations so they could reach a non-Basic speaking audience.

If Cayron was this excited about a report that spoke ill of his glorious Snotzenexer, then he had undoubtedly already seen what had happened in the senate when the accusation had been made. "Yes," Borrel agreed, "the report is quite interesting."

"It's too bad we'll never find out who wrote it."

"Excuse me, sir?" Borrel said.

"I mean," Cayron elaborated, "after what happened in the senate today, that report will get bumped out of the main news net in no time. It'll get bumped out unless someone picks it up and makes it commercial. A private broadcast would never survive, but the public would pay attention to it if it went commercial."

"Are you suggesting that the TCB picks up this report? We don't even know who wro-"

Cayron waived his hand at Borrel. "Of course not. TCB couldn't be responsible for a report like this. We're in the middle of the documentary. If we submitted something like this it would be a conflict of interest. However, if PEN submitted it . . ."

Borrel understood everything at once. When Borrel's old company went bankrupt after the terrorist attack, TCB had purchased the rights to most of their regular programming. Included in that purchase had been the rights to Borrel's Jedi Chronicles, which he had just completed.

"You want to use the Galactic Inquirer to publish subsequent reports," Borrel stated.

"I of course don't expect you to be able to find out who submitted this original report, but that really doesn't matter. The original was filled with lies and false reports, and I suspect you should have no problem coming up with more false accusations. I mean that's all the Galactic Inquirer did anyway."

The Galactic Inquirer had been PEN's tabloid. Borrel was not proud of it, but he realized there was a certain portion of the public who enjoyed reading about celebrity scandals and tales of the unbelievable. Borrel did not miss the implication that he was expected to run this new publication.

"Why me?"

"I know you have no real love for Snotzenexer," Cayron replied, his tone making it sound like you would have to be an idiot not to like Snotzenexer. "Besides, you have ties to Galactic Inquirer that no one else at TCB has. The one thing Snotzenexer has missed since entering office is negative publicity. I think the public needs both sides to liven things up."

You just want to see your hero refute more wild claims, making him look like a god. Cayron also wanted to tarnish PEN's image. The company was deceased, but Cayron still wanted to grind its name into the mud. If Borrel used the Galactic Inquirer to make outrages claims against Snotzenexer, it would definitely smear its image along with his own. Borrel was about to vehemently refuse to take on the degrading job to publish lies to make the TBC's documentary more successful, but then he thought twice.

If Borrel did this, he would not have to use lies. He and Thomas had uncovered an awful lot of very convincing things to charge against Snotzenexer, none of which were fabrication. While Snotzenexer might be able to defend himself against some of them, they would put doubts into people's minds.

The other side to this was that Borrel and Thomas had been searching for a way to stabilize their reports in the main news net, and this was just that way. Even though the report had been widely read and discussed, in a day or two, everyone would think that it was just lies and it would be stricken from the news net. If the Galactic Inquirer endorsed it, they could say that Snotzenexer was really a Hut in disguise and some people would believe it.

"What kind of lies were you thinking of?" Borrel asked, deciding to take the assignment, but not wanting to look pleased about it.

"Oh, I don't know," Cayron replied. "Be creative." He paused in thought. "Didn't Snotzenexer cash in on your stock right before that terrorist attack? Maybe you could blame him for that."

Borrel nearly gagged. That was exactly what they were planning to do anyway, but now the most senior producer at TBC had just sanctioned the report. This will be interesting, Borrel thought. He made a few more comments and questions before agreeing to have a second report in a couple days. Borrel left the large office in a hurry. He could not wait to talk to Thomas.

Chapter 10 "Pirates"

Derran Speedsting watched the load lifter as it carefully placed the last skid into the cargo hold of his ship. Derran had almost insisted on loading the cargo himself, but the dock foreman had ensured him that his best man was on the load lifter. Derran's Trade Federation Rep, Cal Fotch, had also expressed concern that the cargo be loaded as carefully as possible.

The foreman had thought that all the concern was misplaced. "I've made a living loading ships," he had said. "And this isn't the first time I've had to load this many MAM adapters, and I've even dealt with more expensive cargo, though not much."

Regardless of the foreman's history, this was easily the most expensive cargo Derran had hauled, ever. Even back in his smuggling days, the most expensive thing he had ever carried had been narcotics, and he never had that much invested in it since most of the shipments were stolen anyway.

He had to deliver these matter to anti-matter adapters to Celian Prime. There was an advanced fighter construction yard that was going to produce a bunch of custom designed fighters for an upcoming tournament. Derran had 48 MAM adapters loaded on his ship, and at about 500,000 credits apiece, he had a 24 million credit shipment that he was responsible for. That was over six times as much as his ship was worth, and he had a top of the line ship.

As Derran gently lifted his ship off of the landing pad, he began to understand what Solo had been talking about two weeks ago at the sabacc table. There were only a handful of ships in the Trade Federation that could make this shipment safely. You needed a very good active stabilizer to ensure a perfectly smooth flight. You need a cool dry cargo hold with foam ejection capability in case of solar storms or unseen asteroid fields that could provide a rough flight. Plus, you needed a fast ship to keep this cargo out of the hostile space lanes and to its destination as quickly as possible. Derran's ship had all these things, but he was getting no bonus for this shipment, while the Federation was going to make a fortune.

Derran had already looked at the expected flight plan and had rejected it. He had argued heavily with his TFR, but had finally convinced Cal Fotch, that he knew a short cut that would greatly improve the profit margin on this trip. Instead of skirting a treacherous asteroid belt, Derran planned on dropping out of hyperspace and going though the center of it. The middle of the belt was swamped with a thick nebula that occasionally had a stray asteroid in it, but was much faster than going around the whole thing.

Derran keyed in the appropriate coordinates to bring him right to the edge of the nebula, a good seven hours away by hyperspace. The ship accelerated smoothly into hyperspace and Derran decided to take a nap to calm his nerves.

***

The Needle Hole Nebula was legendary among smugglers. It was not on most star charts and few nav coms recognized its existence, but most smugglers would tell you that it had saved their butts more than once.

The Kessel Run was also legendary, and everyone knew what it consisted of, but what most did not realize was that there was a little known hyperspace route off the end of the run that led directly to a secret smuggler's moon. The moon had some of the best repair facilities and most intoxicating drinks and women anywhere. There were plenty of ways to get there, but the best was by threading the needle directly after the Kessel Run.

The Needle Hole Nebula was in the center of a very large ring of asteroids. There had once been a tiny sun, barely larger than a small planet, in the center of the asteroid ring, but a collision with a good size comet had fizzled the sun into a thick, misty nebula. The asteroids continued their flat orbit in homage to their fallen gravity well.

The thing that made the shot from the Kessel Run through the nebula so tricky was the angle of approach. The asteroid rotation was shaped like a thick disk, and the angle of approach from the Kessel Run was nearly 180 degrees. There were Imperial systems all around the asteroid belt, so going around it would certainly run you into a wandering interdictor cruiser.

Whenever an Imperial ship chased a smuggler through the Kessel Run and saw the ship take off in the direction of the Needle Hole Nebula, they assumed that their associates in one of the neighboring systems would pick them up and they gave up the chase. The Imperials did not know about threading the needle, they just saw an asteroid field surrounded by Imperial space.

Threading the needle became harder and harder as the years went on, for every time a young smuggler tried the famed maneuver and was off by a fraction of a degree, his ship would smash into the asteroids, showering the nebula with shrapnel and making it harder for the next person to make it safely. In the years right before the Rebellion, almost no one tried to thread the needle anymore, and everyone took the much more popular route towards Corellia.

Lando was sitting in the middle of the Needle Hole Nebula waiting for Derran Speedsting to make his appearance. Lando had threaded the needle exactly four times in his life, and would not dream of trying it again. He knew that Derran claimed to have done it at least a dozen times, but almost everyone doubted that. Regardless of past threads, Lando knew Derran was going to try it this time.

Speedsting was not coming from Kessel and he was not going to the smuggler's moon. Instead, his route ran nearly perpendicular to the flat disk of asteroids. If trying to pass through the nebula from Kessel was likened to threading a needle, taking the route Derran was using could be likened to tossing a small rock into a large ocean. Still, with the increased rock content of the nebula from all the failed attempts at threading the needle in the past, Lando sincerely doubted Derran was going to traverse the nebula in hyperspace. It was only a two hour trip through in normal space, and probably much less for Derran's ship.

Lando was convinced that Derran would take it because Thomas had told him he would. Trade Federation Traders got paid in light years traveled between pickup and delivery, but the distance was taken off the standard shipping route. Threading the needle was definitely not the standard route. Taking the Needle Hole short cut would cut the distance in half without decreasing Derran's pay. Plus, the standard route went around the nebula and the surrounding systems, bringing the cargo very near to the old smuggler's moon. There were still quite a few unsavory types that inhabited the moon, and if they spotted a cargo ship like Derran's on radar, they might think it was a nice time for a pirate attack. If you tried to go around the nebula in the other direction, you headed toward Kessel, and hyperspace routes that went near the Maw were very time consuming.

All in all, Lando felt fairly confident Derran would be showing up at the nebula any minute now. He was in a pirate ship he had purchased from the Republic military. With Sanson at the helm of the Republic Navy, pirate attacks had become very sparse and known pirate fleets were being rounded up every month. The ships would be stripped of illegal weapons and put on public auction. Lando had been worried that he might get attacked again at his valuable asteroid mine, and thought he needed more firepower than the Lady Luck provided.

Lando had looked at several dozen captured pirate ships and had finally settled on a very new Skipray Blastboat. It had been modified to include a much larger cargo bay. There had been a lot of engine enhancements and weapon advances, all of which had been disconnected before it was put on public auction. Lando had picked it up for 1.2 million, a steal he thought. He then proceeded to replace all of the modifications that had been removed. All of the corresponding software had remained and it had just been Lando's job to find the hardware.

He had named the ship "Cryst Protector" to try and let everyone know what it was for. He had just spent the past two days preparing the enlarged cargo hold to accommodate four crates that would be holding twelve MAM adapters each. It was not that he needed extra room, he just needed to be extra careful.

The ship's sensors were useless in the thick nebula, but that was one of the reasons he had brought Yova along with him. The young woman was not as powerful a Jedi as Trince had been, but she excelled at the mental aspects of the Force. Trince had been a great fighter and had been the main reason Lando had a mining operation at all. Both he and Yova had helped deactivate all of the Imperial traps that had plagued Lando and his team when they first opened the mines.

Trince had then been a great help at locating rich crystal deposits and in excavating them. Yova had proven her worthfullness when it came to hiring a work force. Lando had a core group of people that he had hired from the start to help him open the mine and get it started, but when it came down to harvesting the crystals, Lando needed a much larger work force. Yova came from a race of people that until only a couple hundred years ago had lived exclusively underground. That experience coupled with her ability to understand people's minds made her the perfect foreman. She was also an incredible medic, and though she was not as good a fighter as Trince, had helped immensely when Lando had had to fight off two different theft attempts.

"Another ship is coming," Yova said finally after two hours of waiting.

"How many people aboard?" Lando asked.

"There are two people, both human males. One is about 60 standard years old, while the other is around 35. Only one of them is awake."

"The older one?" Lando asked, knowing that Derran would be flying the ship right now. Yova nodded. "What about their defenses?"

"The ship has both particle and energy shields in place. They are at one hundred percent. Weapons are off-line."

"He's not expecting anyone," Lando said mostly to himself. "Since his sensors aren't worth anything, he's probably got everything poured into his shields. He doesn't want a stray rock to jostle his cargo. Can you shut down his shields?" Lando asked hopefully.

Yova shook her head. "We talked about this earlier. I am not familiar with electronic devices. I can not control his ship."

Lando nodded. They had talked about this before. That was when they decided to bring Lobot along. The cyborg had been a close friend of Lando's ever since Cloud City and he would again prove useful now. Though Yova lacked skill in many of the technical venues in which other Jedi excelled, she surpassed everyone with her mental ability.

Working in conjunction with Lobot, Yova was able to connect the cyborg with Derran's ship through the Hamarian interface band implanted in Lobot's head. Soon Lobot acknowledged that he could control the ship.

"Wait until the ship is in range and drop the energy shields. I then need four precise shots from the ion cannons. Two into his weapon systems and two into his engines."

Lobot nodded. Without accurate sensors, the task would be difficult, but with Yova's help, Lobot should not have a problem.

***

Derran did not bother to wake Cal. He was not exactly sure what the TFR did all day to earn his paycheck, and he did not really care. All Derran wanted to do was get this shipment to the shipyards at Celian Prime as quickly as possible.

The proximity sensors began to fade in and out, and Derran tried to boost power to them. They were surrounded by thick water vapor and random power fluctuations from a dead sun that was still wretching, and the sensors could not be trusted too much, but they were still his only guard for the random asteroids that floated through the nebula. The sensors began returning a more positive signal in response to Derran's power adjustment, and the pilot moved to adjust the power settings on his shields. He lessened the amount to the energy shields and strengthened the particle shields.

His energy shields suddenly dropped to nothing. Derran quickly checked his adjustment to make sure he had not turned them all the way off. A split second later the ship was rocked by four ion blasts and then held tight by a tractor beam. Derran swore.

Cal Fotch came racing into the cockpit wearing very few clothes. "What in blazes did you run into?"

"Pirates," Derran said bluntly.

"I told you we should have taken the standard route. You and your short cuts. If you would just listen to me we woul-"

Derran slapped him hard. "Shut up!" He was getting out of his pilot chair and moving over to a storage bin just outside the cockpit. "No one, and I mean no one, threads the needle anymore. This nebula has virtually no traffic. There is absolutely no reason for pirates to be out here. I took this route because the other one took us too close to a pirate hangout."

"If they're not supposed to be here, then why are they here?"

"Just like Solo said," Derran muttered under his breath.

"What?"

"They hacked into the Federation computers. They saw that I was taking a shipment to the Celian system and knew I would take this shortcut."

"If no one is supposed to know about it, how could they count on it?"

"You idiot! I told you, they saw I was taking the shipment. Old smugglers think alike."

Cal really had no idea what Derran was talking about. All he knew was the Federation owned a 24 million credit shipment that was about to be taken by pirates. "You are going to be in hot water with the Trade Federation after I report this incidence."

"Would you shut up! We're in hot water now." Derran popped the lock on the storage bin and reached into the back to click open a hidden compartment. Derran pulled out the ugliest looking blaster Cal had ever seen (not that the TFR had been around that much).

"What is this?" he asked, holding the weapon like it was the foulest thing imaginable.

"It's a Gamorrian plasma slug thrower. It'll shoot through most ships' hulls without a second thought, so be careful with it."

"You can't have this aboard a TF sanctioned ship. This is highly illegal."

Derran pulled a much bigger weapon from the secret compartment and flipped several switches on it so the high-powered energy rifle could power up. "Two things. One, this is my ship, not the Trade Federation's. I will keep whatever weapons I want on it. Second, if you don't like it, fire me. In the meantime, I'm about to risk my life to save your company's money, so you can try to sound grateful."

By now Lando was asking the Nubian Chill Freighter to stand down and prepare to be boarded. Cal was looking at the com unit, wondering if he should answer the call. Derran saw the glances Cal was giving the com unit and reached under the console to rip out the wires to the communication device. "I don't think so," Derran said.

***

On board Cryst Protector, Lando was maneuvering his ship to dock with Derran's. They had not answered his calls, but Lando had not thought they would. He expected a fight, and he was determined to keep it from being a deadly one. The two ships were soon close enough to dock, and Lando extended the mating sleeve. As soon as he attained a pressure sleeve around the lock, Lando and Mansenchin raced down the corridor to the outer hatch. They both had heavy blasters, but knew Derran had a much more extensive cache of weapons.

Lando and Mansenchin stood with their backs to the hatch on either side and around the corners of the entryway so they were out of the direct line of fire. Lando held his breath and remotely opened the hatch between the docked ships. Before the door was fully opened, repeating laser rifle fire came ripping into Lando's ship, turning the entryway into Calamarian cheese.

The fire stopped for a brief moment, and Lando could here Derran arguing with his TFR.

"What are you doing? You're going to kill everyone on board!"

"I hope so," Derran replied. "Or would you rather me let them have your precious cargo?" Derran raised his voice to shout at the, as of yet, unseen pirates. "You cowards going to show yourself, or am I going to have to come in to get you?!"

Lando looked across the entryway at Mansenchin who was about to spin around the corner and open fire, but another barge of laser rifle fire lit up the entryway. Lando looked in the other direction where Yova was standing. "Can you stun them on my command?"

"I can knock them unconscious if you want."

Lando shook his head. "I don't want them to think a Jedi was involved. It would point the finger at our group for responsibility." Lando took a deep breath and pulled a mask over his face. Mansenchin did likewise. "When we spin around the corner, stun them," Lando said. Yova nodded.

Lando looked across at Mansenchin again and when the laser fire stopped again, Lando held up three fingers and slowly counted down to one.

Derran saw the two masked men spin around and was just ready to open fire, when he suddenly stumbled backwards as if fighting off a migraine. Before he could recover, The two men both hit him with stun blasts, and he went sprawling. Lando raced forward to pick up the fallen weapon, and Mansenchin followed.

The Federation rep had not been in the line of fire, and the two pirates found Cal cowering in his quarters. Soon, both Federation employees were tied up in their quarters, with Mansenchin standing over them. Now that Cal realized he was not going to die, he suddenly became very brave.

"You guys are never going to unload the cargo, you know. Your Skipray doesn't have the ability to do a cargo bay dock with this ship. Even if you could, you'd never be able to find a market for 48 MAM adapters. You've just wasted everyone's time."

Derran felt like slapping him again, but his hands were tied. He had just told this man ten minutes ago that they had sliced the Federation computers to make this pirate hit. These pirates knew exactly what ship Derran was flying and knew exactly what he was carrying. The hit was done so smoothly that to think for a moment these men did not have a way to transfer the cargo or they did not already have a customer lined up for delivery was ludicrous.

Mansenchin could barely hold in his laughter. Lando had told him not to talk with the prisoners, but this man was an idiot. "We've wasted your time?! Is that what your worried about? What are they paying you an hour? I'll reimburse you if it's that big a deal. I think you should be far more worried that you guys just lost 24 million credits with nothing but a weaponless ship with a blown sublight drive to show for it."

Cal clamed up after that rebuke. Now he was beginning to worry about how they were going to get out of the nebula. The ion blasts shorted-out the sublight drive. If they had to traverse the rest of the nebula with thrusters, it would take them over a month.

Yova, Lando, and Lobot were busy solving the problem that Cal had pointed out earlier. It was true that the two ships could not dock their cargo bays in space. Instead, Lando and Lobot had evacuated both cargo holds while Yova used the Force to transfer the four crates from Derran's ship, through empty space, and into the Cryst Protector. Once all four crates were safely transferred, Lando pressurized both holds and went into Derran's to steal all of his safety harnesses. The crates seemed uninjured from the four ion blasts, and Lando took extra care as he secured them in his hold.

Mansenchin got word that they were done, and he bid his leave of his captures. "Have a nice day gentlemen, and please do bill me for your lost time."

It took about five minutes to make sure their getaway was clean and that they had not left any evidence behind. After that, Lando sped away from the stationary ship, leaving the two men to fend for themselves. He did not feel too guilty about leaving them stranded. He knew Derran was resourceful enough to get out of the nebula without too much trouble.

***

Derran was out of his bonds just minutes after Mansenchin had left them. He raced to the cockpit, but the other ship was already out of sensor range. In this pea soup, that was not saying much, but without even a guess in a direction, Derran's still functional torpedoes would be useless. Derran returned to his quarters and saw that Cal was struggling hopelessly with his bonds.

Despite Mansenchin's considerable skill at tying knots, Derran had freed himself easily, but Cal would remain secured until someone untied him. Derran had half a mind to leave him tied up until they got back to civilization, which might not be that soon. He figured he was in enough trouble as it was and decided not to make matters worse.

"You are going to have to answer for this debacle," Cal fumed once he was released. "I'll be surprised if they let you keep your ship."

Derran turned sharply on the rep and nearly decked him. Cal retreated visibly. The Trade Federation could fire him. They could even charge him for the lost cargo, but they could never remove him from his ship. Derran was about to say as much, but held his tongue. "What's the use," he muttered.

"So how are we going to get out of here?" Cal finally asked, deciding to change the subject to more pressing matters.

"We don't have sublight engines, but we still have the hyperdrive engines."

"What good are they going to do in this mess? Your navcom won't be able to calculate a path from here to Celian."

He was right, but still an idiot. "Why do we want to go to Celian? We lost our cargo if you remember. I see no reason to go there. What we need to do is repair our, uh, my sublight drive."

"What better place than the Celian Shipyards."

"True," Derran admitted the point, "but like you said my navcom can't calculate that jump. I do, however have a different jump we can take. This ship has done it a dozen times before. This time it will be much easier since we are already halfway through the needle."

It was true that Derran had used the Needle Hole Nebula to avoid the smuggler's moon, but now that they had no cargo, he felt pretty safe revisiting the hostile environment. A few of the old timers who still worked there owed him a few favors and he could not think of a better place to get his ship repaired.

"What are you talking about?"

"Sit back, Cal. You're about to thread the needle. It's something to tell your kids about."

"I don't have any kids."

"Just shut up, will you."

***

Lando landed his purchased pirate ship on the Yavin moon without much fanfare. Mara and Ra'tok were waiting for him when he left the ship. Lando had dropped his other companions back at the asteroid mine before making the trip to the Academy. He shook hands with the small welcoming party.

"It is good to see you again, Lando," Ra'tok said in his gruff voice.

"Likewise," Lando responded.

Mara was a little less positive in her greeting, still trying to figure out what the entrepreneur was doing here. She finally gave up and asked. "What in blazes are you doing here, Calarissian?"

"It's good to see you too, Mara. I'm just dropping by with a couple presents for a Vince Trimpo."

"That's me," Vince spoke up, walking toward the group. Vince had seen the ship land and left his work with the TIE's to see who it was. "Hi Lando."

Lando had flown with the 185th back against the Dark Ring and held the three pilots in the utmost respect. He had taken it very hard when they had lost Jon. "I've got a ship full of MAM adapters and was wondering if you knew what I could do with them?"

Vince was busy wiping some grease of his hands with a cloth and froze. "Please tell me you're not joking."

Lando shook his head, smiling broadly at the response Vince was giving him. The tall pilot looked like a kid at his birthday party. "Be careful when you unload them. I'll expect the 24 million credit payment in monthly installments over the next four years."

Vince paid no attention to the sarcasm and had already left to get a load lifter. Mara knew that this was not a chance occurrence. "Who have you been talking to, and where did you get these adapters?"

"Thomas called me up a while back and told me you guys needed these things. He told me when a shipment was coming, who'd be flying them, and how I could hijack them. It worked great."

Mara's face was quickly matching her hair. "I told everyone not to abuse Ghent's position, and what does he do! If Snotzenexer finds out we have access to the Trade Federation we'll be out of business faster than a Gamorrian beauty parlor."

"Easy, Mara," Lando tried to calm her. "Everything's cool. No one knows what we did. Besides, Thomas killed two birds with one stone on this one because the guy we robbed knows Han and is now probably going to help him set up that union he wants."

Mara considered this, knowing that Thomas would make sure any plan was carefully laid out. Still, Snotzenexer was not a dummy. They needed to be more careful, and she would make a note to have Thomas tell her about all other such plans in the future.

Mara was so lost in thought that she did not see Angelic, one of the female students at the Academy approach. "Master Jade," she said quietly, not wanting to disturb her thoughts.

Mara was not a master or anywhere near even just a Jedi, but since Luke had left, she had usurped the command of this jungle moon from Masters Streen and Tionne. The students had gotten into the habit of calling Mara, "Master Jade," and she had not found the strength to refuse the tittle yet.

"Yes," Mara responded without really listening.

"We are out of supplies," Angelic said blatantly.

Mara knew this time would come but she did not want to have to deal with it. In this time of turmoil with Luke running about the galaxy, Snotzenexer in charge, and Jedi held in general disregard, the Academy was not holding its usual classes. Instead the students kept themselves busy by helping with the rebuilding of the Academy. After the attack some eight months ago now, the Republic had flooded the moon with hundreds of tons of building supplies, but that flood had slowed to a trickle when Snotzenexer took office, and now they had run dry.

Mara was just about to tell the young student to go to Streen and leave her alone, when Vince came bouncing from his examination of the MAM adapters. At least someone was in a good mood. "They'll be perfect," he said. "We should be able to fit all the TIE's in a matter of days. We still don't have any pilots, but we will definitely have ships."

Angelic was still looking at Mara expectantly. "What shall we do now?"

Why was everyone coming to her with their problems? Vince needed pilots; the students needed something to do; Thomas was- She paused in thought. "Angelic," she asked slowly, "have you ever flown anything before?"

The young girl shook her head. "How many students are there?"

"About 30," Angelic replied.

"I want you to gather everyone in the main hall," Mara said to Angelic. The girl ran off to do as she was told. Mara turned to Vince. "I found your pilots."

Vince had learned to fly when he was 14, and even though Angelic looked to be much older than that, Vince knew there were several students as young as 10. "I hope this works."

"They're Jedi students," Mara said confidently. "They'll learn quickly and perform well." If only all my other problems could solve each other like this, she thought.

Chapter 11 "The Exterminators"

Sandie Hollins stared at her screen with frustration. She was checking and rechecking her access codes and authority matrices and coming up empty time and time again. When she had spoken to President Loyran last weekend, he had given her a valuable piece of advice: "Try to make sure you're not expendable."

Ever since that meeting she had been trying to tie herself down to the bank's proceedings so it could not function without her, but she was being rejected at every turn. To her it looked like the bank had turned into an automated monster. Someone or something else was handling all of its important functions. While she could still buy and sell under her own authority, someone else was doing the same, often undoing her own moves.

The feeling of uselessness was very depressing. To her this bank was no longer the home office but just a local branch, and she was no longer the president, but merely a body in a chair in the president's office.

She relaxed a bit, letting her arms, which had been busy at the keyboard, fall on her desk. Sandie instantly recoiled her left arm as she felt something move underneath it. She found herself staring at a roach crawling across her desktop. The idea that an insect of that size could have gotten into her office was ludicrous. As soon as this shock wore off, her female instincts took over, and she found something to squash it.

It was not an especially big bug, but the bank should have been too tight to let anything in. She might have to look into the integrity of the bank's foundation to see if there were any cracks in the- She stopped that train of thought as soon as she realized what she was thinking. Had she turned into a janitor? Were her most important duties now looking after the actual building as opposed to what went on inside it? Two months ago, the bank's finances went up and down on her command. Now she was organizing raids against insects.

Her com unit interrupted this line of thought before it depressed her too much. "President Hollins, there is a man here to see you. He says he is from the Association and that you requested his services."

The bodyguard she had asked for was finally here. Sandie did not really know why she had wanted a bodyguard. She did not feel she was in any physical danger from Snotzenexer, just political danger. Still, she had the money to spend, and a little extra protection could not hurt.

"Tell him I'll be ready to go to lunch in two hours and he can meet me in the lobby."

There was a short pause before the receptionist responded. "He seems rather insistent that he speaks with you now."

Sandie sighed, stupid grunt probably. "Very well. Send him up."

Eran entered Sandie's office a few minutes later. Both were rather surprised at what they saw. Eran had never seen the bank president before, and he had expected her to be a lot older. Sandie, on the other hand, had expected her bodyguard to be a lot bigger.

While she had waited for Eran, Sandie had gone back to scanning through all of the checks and balances that were stealing power from her and delegating it to some unknown third party. Now she wanted to seem aloof and went back to looking at her screen.

"What's Snotzenexer up to now?" Eran asked innocently.

"He's stealing all my power, turning this branch into a pu-" she started to say before she realized that the question had not been asked by her inner voice but by her bodyguard. "I mean he's planning to initiate the heal-"

"I believe what you said the first time. It matches the man I met a lot better than what he's shown to the public."

"You've met President Snotzenexer?" Sandie asked, disbelieving the claim.

Eran's composure was not shaken by her tone. "I met Snotzenexer about eight months ago aboard a Super Star Destroyer hidden in the Varion asteroid belt. He hired me to steal the financial records of the Republic. I did so, and two weeks later he was the new President of the Republic. The man I know doesn't create corporate mergers or initiate stock market miracles. The man I know kills billions of innocents with asteroids and calls himself an Imperial Admiral."

Sandie was stunned. President Loyran had said something about Snotzenexer's possible Imperial background, but even Loyran thought Snotzenexer was innocent of any major wrong doing. This claim that Snotzenexer was responsible for the Denorid disaster was totally out of the blue. Also the idea that Snotzenexer had planned the fall of the Republic by stealing its financial records and acting upon them meant that the accident at the Xentin Mining Corporation was not an accident either.

"Who are you?" Sandie asked finally.

"My name is Eranadis Palpatine. Snotzenexer sought me out because of my last name with some hope that I had Force abilities. I don't. Instead he used me as a thief. Since then I've had no contact with him, though if he knew where I was, he'd probably try to have me killed."

"What proof do you have of what you said earlier?"

"I don't need any," Eran replied. "You already believe me."

He was right. For some reason, it all made sense. Snotzenexer was an Imperial Admiral and had planned everything out. Sandie had held Snotzenexer in very high regard when she had been an outsider. He had been a financial god who could turn a whim into a hundred million credits in a heartbeat. The idea that someone could be that lucky went against everything she had believed in. It should have set off all kinds of bells and whistles in her mind, but instead she got swept up in the magic of it like the rest of the galaxy.

"I am here because you asked for protection," Eran continued, "though I doubt you realized what kind of danger you are really in." Eran paused. "I told you what I know, now you tell me what you know."

Sandie looked at her computer screen, too taken up in this trading of knowledge to analyze whether she should oblige this young man. "He is stealing all of my power."

"All of YOUR power?" Eran asked.

"Well, all of this bank's power. This used to be the focal point for all of the Republic's major finances and trading. Either Snotzenexer has moved those accounts elsewhere, or he is somehow controlling the trades and investments remotely. Either way, this bank hasn't made any major transactions of galactic importance in quite a while. All we do now is service our local customer's accounts and deal with some of the local governments. We could do that out of a side office, really. This bank was busier before Snotzenexer took charge than it is now."

Sandie lost her train of thought as she saw another roach crawling on the floor. She quickly stomped on it and looked up at Eran. "We have some how developed a bug problem."

Eran had not seen the roach, as he was standing on the other side of the desk. "Are you saying this office is bugged?" Eran asked, suddenly very quiet.

"No," Sandie replied. "We have a real bug pro-" she stopped cold.

Eran raced around the desk and the two of them peered at the remains of the bug Sandie had squashed. It looked organic, but the remains were too mashed to really tell. Eran scanned the seam of the wall along the carpet and picked out a pair of black antennae. He quickly leaped over to the spot and expertly plucked up the offending bug.

Sandie was amazed at his agility and watched as he analyzed the live bug between his finger and thumb. After a few seconds of examination, Eran slowly crushed the bug in front of his face. He tossed the dead bug in the trashcan with a shake of his head. "They're real," he said.

"I'm getting too jumpy to stay cooped up in this office. Are you up to an early lunch?" Sandie asked.

Eran was looking around the room slowly, seeing if he could find another bug, organic or otherwise. "Sure."

Sandie pressed the com unit on her desk. "Alicsia," she called her secretary, "has anyone noticed a bug problem down there?"

"Not that I know of," came the response.

"Well could you call an extermination service. I've noticed a few bugs in my office."

"Sure thing."

Sandie severed the connection. "This is one thing I can handle," she said with a forced smile.

The two of them walked out of her office and took the turbolift down. As they walked past Alicsia's desk, the secretary stopped her boss. "A few other's have noticed some roaches," the secretary confirmed with a very repulsed look. "I'll try to get someone in here about them before lunch."

"Speaking of lunch," Sandie responded, "I'm going to take an early one. If anyone calls tell them I'll be back in an hour and a half."

With that, Eran and Sandie left the building.

***

"Let me get this straight," Eran said 45 minutes later, stuffing a piece of char-broiled steak in his mouth, "your bank has no purpose anymore?"

"It's not that severe," Sandie responded, taking a sip of non-alcoholic wine. "The bank here on Iom is just not the main office anymore. We are just another branch. We might be the branch to Iom, the economic hub of the system, but it's still just a branch. Before I could make moves that would affect every other branch whether it be on Vario or in the next system. Now all I can do is make changes to this bank's holdings."

"But why would Snotzenexer do this?" Eran asked. "He might do a lot of strange things, but they all have a reason. If he is removing power from this bank it has to be because he either wants to move it somwhere else, or he just doesn't want you to have it."

"Maybe he feels too distant from Iom," Sandie guessed. "He used to control everything and now he is more like a spectator. I mean he can still influence this bank, but he doesn't have the same clout over in Coruscant."

"He's not insecure," Eran argued. "He wouldn't be doing this just so he can be back in the drivers seat. He wants to go somewhere with it."

"I get the feeling that he is trying to take over. I mean he's done it with so many other things in the past. He took over this bank; he took over the VCY; he took over the Republic; he started the Trade Federation. The problem with that idea is that he already has control of this bank. If he wanted me or anyone else gone all he would have to do is fire me or close the bank. He has the authority."

"It has to be something else," Eran said thoughtfully. "If I understand things correctly, Snotzenexer has made the Varion Imperial Bank the financial backbone of all his endeavors, including the Republic. He can't just automate that bank and expect it to function properly. I guess if it were me I would want the bank's home office to be moved to Coruscant."

"Then why not do it?" Sandie asked. "He could build a new home office in a matter of weeks with all the money he has. Why is he going through all this secret maneuvering?"

"Snotzenexer has always played to the crowd," Eran said. "If he can get the masses to agree with him than he feels he can take on anything. There must be some publicity reason for not making the move out in the open."

"Well I don't see how he can possibly make a move to Coruscant unless he does it in the open. I mean, he still needs a branch on Coruscant and the VIB doesn't have one."

"What if he uses an existing building and just renovates it?" Eran asked.

"I guess you don't know Snotzenexer after-all. Or maybe you just don't know Coruscant. The only vacant buildings are half a kilometer below the upper surface. Snotzenexer will need the tallest building on Coruscant, not a renovated slum under the city."

"What if he buys out another bank? He's done that enough, hasn't he?"

Sandie smiled at Eran's idiocy. "Eran, there is only one bank on Coruscant. It is the Coruscant Galactic Bank. The CGB is bigger than all of Snotzenexer's previous purchases combined. Maybe four times as big."

"What about a merger?"

Eran just would not give up, would he? Sandie was about to shoot down this idea too, but she stopped. "If he did that he would literally control everything. The big wigs at the CGB would never accept it though. Snotzenexer would really have to sweeten the deal for them."

"What if he promised to move the home office to Coruscant and close this branch?"

Sandie stopped her fork halfway to her mouth. "Check please!"

***

"This is crazy," Sandie said for the tenth time in the last 15 minutes. She and Eran were walking up the steps to the main entrance of the VIB. Eran saw two airvans parked in front of the building with pictures of dying bugs painted on the side.

"It looks like the exterminators are here," Eran pointed out.

Sandie did not hear him. "The idea is simply ludicrous. Snotzenexer would never be so bold."

They walked into the front lobby and walked past a man in coveralls pushing a small tank of gas on a repulsar sled. "The exterminators are setting up their equipment before lunch and will be back in an hour," Alicsia called to them as they walked to the turbolift, but Sandie only had one thing on her mind.

Eran did take the time to look around the open office area. There were lines of desks on either side of the main aisleway that led toward the turbo lift. Desks lined the aisle and the exterminators' gas tanks lined the walls behind them positioned one every ten meters. It seemed like an awful lot of gas to Eran. He shrugged, maybe the bugs were worse than they had thought.

The two of them got into the turbo lift and were whisked up to Sandie's top office. The ride lasted about 30 seconds. The doors opened at the top, and an exterminator was waiting for them. The man seemed a bit nervous and very startled that there was someone else in the turbo lift. To Eran the man looked like a curious houseguest who got caught wandering around upstairs while everyone else was downstairs at the party.

Sandie strolled right past the exterminator, but Eran did a double take. The man stepped into the turbo lift and pressed the button for the main floor. He looked at Eran curiously, wondering if the young man was going to stay or get off. Eran was struck by something in the man's eyes. There seemed to be fear, but something else too. Recognition? Eran was not sure, but he had to follow Sandie or he would find himself in the lobby if he stayed in the lift any longer.

Eran exited, still looking at the man as the doors closed between them. "I think I know him," Eran said.

"What?" Sandie shouted from the end of the hall as she prepared to open her office door. There was a canister of bug gas sitting outside her door. "Are you coming?"

"I said I think I kn-" Eran started but saw the Sandie was not really listening. He jogged after her, and the two of them entered her office.

Sandie quickly tossed her coat on a couch and plopped behind her desk. "If Snotzenexer is moving into the CGB, there should be some kind of evidence."

Eran was still puzzled about his odd encounter a few moments ago. "Wouldn't you have already found it?"

"Not if I didn't know what to look for. All of our main accounts with the Trade Federation, the Coruscant Shipyards, the new health organization, and so on have been frozen. At least they appear frozen to me. If someone else activated them, then I should be able to see that." She typed for a couple minutes while Eran remained silent. "Here," she finally said. "Eran, come have a look at this."

"Huh?"

"Eran," she looked up from her screen. Eran was staring out the window. "Eran! What's wrong?"

Eran shook his head. "I'm sorry, I just know I've seen that guy before."

"What guy?"

"The exterminator guy. His face seemed so familiar, I . . . I just . . . ARGH, I just can't remember from where."

"So you bumped into him on the street before, big deal. This is important. Come over here and look at this."

Eran shook his head clear again. He walked over and saw a screen full of stock market jumble that he could not begin to understand. "Right here," Sandie pointed to a bunch of figures and symbols, "is the Trade Federation's holdings. After the senate hearings yesterday, announcing that there will be an oversight committee to look into its employee contracts, one would expect a lot of activity, but you can see that it hasn't moved. That is what I'm seeing. Now look at this." Sandie called up a bunch of other figures. "This is the report given out by the CGB. They show the Trade Federation taking a hit on the stock market."

Sandie looked up at Eran. "You're right. Snotzenexer is planning a move. He's already started to move the main stock accounts. He's still got a lot to do though. He might have command of the stocks, but he's still got to have someone supervise the transfer of all the main accounts. I mean he's got a long way to go in order to bridge the gap between Iom and Coruscant."

Eran was only half listening, his mind searching out his long-term memory. A few of the words Sandie said were triggering his mind. "Command, supervise, bridge." He paused while Sandie just stared at him. "Not supervise - super." Then it hit him.

"I met Snotzenexer on the bridge of a Super Star Destroyer," he said excitably.

"You already told me that," Sandie replied.

"Command. I saw the bridge commander on the Super Star Destroyer," he finally put everything together. "That guy in the turbo lift was the bridge commander on the Super Star Destroyer when I met Snotzenexer."

"What are you trying to say?" Sandie asked, more than a little confused.

Eran's mind was working double time now. "You know what happened to Custom Shields Galactica?"

"Yea," Sandie responded, slightly surprised at the sudden change of topic. She had been one of the people most intimately involved with those proceedings. "The facility was destroyed by the bacta faction, but since Snotzenexer was part owner, he was able to move the factory out here while still keeping the patent titles legal." Sandie paused when she heard what she said and what Eran was getting at. "That's a crazy idea. Snotzenexer isn't going to blow this place up just so he can move it. There are much better ways to close this place down."

Eran was racing about the room, beating his head with his hands and trying to think things through. "What did you know about Snotzenexer before I came here this morning?"

"I knew he had stolen money, laundered money, and cheated on taxes. There were a lot of other things that I guessed at based on what I saw in the computer records but nothing that I could say for sure."

"I bet those other things implied what I told you earlier, right?" Eran was looking out the window now, seeing that the exterminators were loading their repulsar sleds into the airvans.

"Pretty much," Sandie said, getting a little nervous.

"And how easy would it be to erase those records or maybe cover them up?"

"Impossible," Sandie said. "I can't even adjust them. They are locked into the system and the only way to get rid of the evidence would be to . . ." she paused dramatically. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that Snotzenexer put bugs in your bank so you would call the exterminators and give him the perfect opportunity to fill your bank with bombs." The image of all the bug gas canisters lined up along the main floor walls was permanently implanted in Eran's mind.

"We need to call the local authorities," Sandie said, reaching for her com unit.

"Negative," Eran said. He was watching through the window as the airvans left. "It's too late. We need to get out of here now." Eran grabbed Sandie's wrist and ran for the turbo lift.

"But-" Sandie started as she was jerked forward. "But he wouldn't blow up the building with everyone in it. That's insanity. He'd do it at night."

"How many people know what you know?" Eran asked as the turbo lift came whisking up to the top floor.

"No one else, I think. I don't know."

"Neither does Snotzenexer, and he doesn't want to take any chances. Besides, would your bank let the extermination service keep their gas canisters in the bank over night?"

The lift opened and the two scared individuals got in. Eran pressed the button for the main floor and started to count the seconds. "Come on," he started saying every other second. Thirty seconds was a very long time when you were waiting for an explosion to blow you to pieces.

Eran knew they were too late before the explosion came. "Get down!" He shoved Sandie to the floor as a huge explosion from above shook the turbo shaft.

Turbo lifts operate on tractor beam technology. The beam emitter is usually found on the top of the building. Eran knew how he would have taken out this building had it been a terrorist organization in the middle of town, and he did not want anything around the building destroyed. With one or two bombs per floor and the explosions traveling down from the top and then blowing out the entire lower level, the gutted upper levels would fall into a nice, neat heap.

The lift began to fall as soon as the top floor went, blowing apart the tractor beam emitter. The lift fell for two floors before the safety brakes caught hold. "Where does this shaft go?" Eran asked as he pulled out one of his borrowed lightsabers. He had maybe three seconds before the traveling explosions reached their current level.

"Straight down to the underground vault," Sandie shouted above the sound of the building exploding about them.

Even if she had said, "Straight down to the lava pools," Eran would have still attacked the brakes. He slashed quickly and efficiently into the top edge of the lift, slicing through the walls of the box, and destroying the safety brakes. The lift resumed its plummet just a fraction of a second ahead of the descending destruction. The top of the lift was ripped off as the floor directly above them was swamped with flame.

Eran was thrown to his back, and he and Sandie watched in horror through the top of the convertible lift as the flames chased them down the shaft. They fell faster and faster, leaving the explosions above them. Eran watched as they passed the main floor, continuing down into the sub-basement and the vault bellow. The explosions reached the main floor just a second later and the noise was deafening.

The ground shook violently and flames screamed down the narrow shaft, the visible heat expanding much faster than gravity allowed them to fall. The natural thing for a heat explosion to do was rise, and the flames only licked the top of their falling lift before evacuating the long shaft and rising into the sky far above.

The turbo lift had one more safety feature that saved the pair's life. Safety foam with the consistency of very thick cream had filled the bottom of the shaft the moment the brakes had been destroyed. The lift made a terrible slurping and sucking sound as it hit the foam, shooting the creamy white substance upward between the lift and the shaft and showering its occupants as the foam came over the open top.

Sandie was ecstatic they were alive, but Eran was still looking above, watching as tons of flaming shrapnel were cascading down toward them. With his lightsaber still in hand, Eran cut a hole in the non-functioning doors and pulled Sandie out of the lift just moments before the burning chunks of wood and furniture fell, hissing into the foam where they had just been.

There were two guards stationed inside the vault area and with all the destruction above ground and the alarms sounding loudly, both of them were on alert when Eran and Sandie came tumbling out of the lift. A huge wave of foam and smoke sprayed out of the crude hole Eran had cut, following the tumbling pair as the flaming pieces of the bank came crashing down behind them.

The extracurricular activity did not phase the guards as they kept their weapons trained on the two figures. "Freeze! Don't move!"

Eran ignored them, realizing the group had much bigger problems than the two weapons trained on him and Sandie. He got up and quickly walked back to their crude entry point.

Sandie was unrecognizable, covered with soot and foam, but her voice rang out clearly in the small room. "Hold your fire, men. We are not responsible for the destruction. I am President Hollins, and this is my bodyguard."

Both guards recognized her voice and lowered their weapons, turning their attention to Eran. The young bodyguard was trying to look up the shaft they had just descended. A jumbled mess of I-beams, premacrete bricks, and plaster made up the base of the growing pile, and flaming pieces of wood, carpeting, and furniture kept raining down through and around the much larger pieces.

The foam that lay thick on the floor immediately outside the lift had put out the fires at the base of the shaft, but Eran could see, feel, and hear the combustion taking place above their position. He could also feel a stiff breeze flowing past him and up the shaft. "We're loosing air!" he said suddenly.

"What? How?"

"This portal is acting like an air vent into a furnace. If we don't close it now, the fires will suck out all our oxygen and flood us with smoke." Eran spun about looking for something in the room to cover the meter-wide hole he had cut in the closed turbo lift doors. His eyes went up and he looked at the thick ceiling pieces of insulation that kept the vault area at a regulated temperature.

Eran made a few quick swipes with his lightsaber and brought down a small section of the aluminum grid work in which the insulation pieces were installed. The guards recognized the urgency in Eran's activity and went over to help him. They hoisted two of the rectangular pieces in front of the door, hoping the suction of the fires above would be enough to hold them in place. They held for the moment, but Eran took a few long pieces of aluminum supports and used his weapon to weld them into the floor as angled supports, ensuring the insulation would not fall down on them if the air suction of the fire subsided. Besides, if the fires were extinguished from above, smoke might fill the turbo shaft, and they needed protection from that as well.

The three men looked away from their work securing the door to see Sandie busy at the vault door. The huge, circular door was closed at the moment, but Sandie was going through several security procedures to get inside. Eran walked up beside her. "What are you doing?"

"This bank has built up a lot of wealth over the past year and stock holders insisted that we protect against everything so their accounts would remain intact. We do have a security measure in case of a catastrophic loss like this. All I can hope is that I am not too late."

Eran did not ask any further questions as he saw all of Sandie's energies were devoted to the task of opening the door. The huge vault finally opened and Sandie and Eran quickly stepped inside. Eran tried to ignore the amazing display of wealth all around him from incredible gems and diamonds to stacks of gold and latinum. Through the entry portion of the vault came the storage cells for billions of hard currency vouchers. Unestablished credit vouchers were secured in sliding trays inside huge cabinets that were stacked a dozen to a section, with well over two dozen sections.

"None of them are worth anything until activated," Sandie said as they walked quickly toward the back of the vault, "but if you take even one of them, I will personally see you fed to a rancor."

"Hadn't even crossed my mind," Eran lied back.

The third section of the vault contained thousands of personal security deposit boxes. They all had a number and a slot for an ID card. Sandie made her way to box 756 and inserted her Presidential ID. The box slid open and Sandie pulled out two more ID keys. She looked at them briefly and tossed one to Eran. "Use it on box 2037," she said, "and bring me the contents."

Eran did as he was told and soon had yet another ID key. He walked over to Sandie who had used her key to retrieve a coded power cell from a different deposit box. She took the key from Eran and inserted the power cell into the back of the original box she had opened. There were two power couplings in the back of the special deposit box that received the ports on the coded power cell and opened a slot in a bare section of the vault's interior.

Sandie, nearly finished with the complicated procedures of opening the vault's hidden compartment, walked over to the revealed slot in the wall and inserted Eran's key. A doorway slid open, and Sandie walked through. Eran was quick to follow, and the bodyguard found himself in a small office cubicle. Sandie was already seated in front of a computer monitor, pounding away on the keyboard.

The president felt at home, calling up information from the console and her mind was freed up enough to tell Eran what was going on. "We like to tell everyone who visits our bank to deposit their savings that our vault is completely separated from the rest of the bank and the planet. There are no power lines coming into the vault and no communication cables going either way. That is not entirely true. Though no one has access to the vault or its stand-alone controls, this console I'm at now is linked directly to our main computers above.

"This computer constantly monitors the accounts and holdings of our bank so that if, for any reason, we loose power or have a massive computer crash, we can always retrieve our records from the moment before the catastrophe."

"Does this mean we still have all of the records against Snotzenexer?" Eran asked.

"No," Sandie replied. "Those are lost forever. What I can do is liquidate the bank's accounts before Snotzenexer cleans them out."

"I'm afraid you are going to have to explain it better than that in order for me to understand," Eran admitted.

"Thousands of years ago and in most primitive cultures today the monetary system is based on physical currency. In these systems, a person's wealth is directly proportional to how much physical currency they have. The types of currency range from cattle, land, or even food. Every civilization starts with the bartering system and moves to a more standardized currency system involving coins or printed-paper. The next step in monitory evolution is credit. People deposit their physical currency into a bank and the bank records the deposit electronically, giving that customer a line of credit equal to the amount of the deposit. The physical currency is placed in a vault.

"As the currency system progresses, inflation, interest rates, and stock investments enter the system, allowing a credit line to increase in value. The hard currency does not grow, however. In fact, as inflation progresses, the deposited hard currency decreases in value as the electronic credit line increases. Of course, during a crash, the electronic credit line may plummet while hard currency skyrockets. This instability happens with every evolving system until safeties are in place to protect against it. Until the public is confident that the credit system can work effectively, the society will never get rid of their hard currency.

"People need something they can touch and feel. They are not comfortable with a number on a screen telling them how much money they have. There are many recorded instances of entire civilizations crumbling because of this problem. Because credit usually increases into something far in excess of the hard currency used to establish it, it is never possible to return it into bills and coins without loosing a large majority of it. If everyone went to a bank to remove all their money, the bank would not be able to comply. It just wouldn't have enough hard currency.

"We have done away with hard currency for the most part. Precious stones and metals can still be used, but people wanted a more practical way to carry around their wealth without entrusting it to a bank."

"Enter the credit vouchers back there," Eran said, realizing were this was going.

"Right," Sandie said. "Once credit is liquidated into a credit voucher, it is no longer earning interest or subject to any type of change. Right now Snotzenexer has all the codes and accessing privileges to do anything he wants with this bank's accounts. I imagine he was going to wait until this bank's systems were dead so he could move everything to the Coruscant Galactic Bank. If I dump all the credit into the vouchers in those cabinets back there, he won't be able to touch it."

Sandie worked furiously, trying to gather as many accounts as she could into the liquidation file. This was going to be the largest withdrawal in galactic history, and Sandie needed to be sure she did not leave anything for Snotzenexer to clean up later.

"But like you said before," Eran brought up, "there aren't going to be enough credit vouchers for you to do that, right? Didn't you say you can't get hard currency together to equal the credit line?"

"Those vouchers aren't hard currency like you're thinking of. None of them have a value yet. They can be programmed to hold a million credits each, but can also hold as little as a quarter credit. True hard currency has a pre-established value that can't change, like the gold back there."

Eran nodded, trying to figure out how much the cabinets of vouchers could hold. There were 250 vouchers in a tray, 15 trays per cabinet, 12 cabinets in a section, and there were 30 total sections. At a million credits per voucher, Sandie could withdrawal 1,350,000,000,000 credits. 1.35 trillion credits seemed like a lot, but Eran remembered reading that Snotzenexer was worth several trillion. "Are you sure you're going to have enough room to take it all out?"

"There are two more branches of the Varion Imperial Bank in this system and they both have similar voucher caches to this one. I should be able to withdrawal into those caches and lock down the vaults to prevent theft. Besides, like I said before, Snotzenexer has already removed the majority of the VIB's holdings from this bank. The Trade Federation made up over three fourths of Snotzenexer's financial empire, and I can't touch it."

Sandie had just finished compiling all of the personal accounts and was in the process of liquidating them while she looked through the corporate accounts. There were a few small businesses with several million credits each, but Snotzenexer had already taken the majority of the major corporations. Sandie nearly fell out of her chair when she saw that the Varion Construction Yard account was still open. Snotzenexer was part owner of the establishment and Sandie felt that it would have been the first corporation for Snotzenexer to take control of.

Sandie scrambled to liquidate the 450 billion credits in the account before she lost the privileges and looked at the complexity of the account. Sandie immediately saw how clever her friend, President Loyran, had been. There had been some major changes to the account recently, tying it to several smaller local businesses and even a few media corporations. If Snotzenexer had tried to move that account to Coruscant, he would have had to take everything else with it, thus notifying several media companies of his actions.

Sandie finally sat back from the computer, having finished taking as much as she could. She did not want to think about the consequences of her actions. Many of the bank's customers were making big money in the stock market and other economic ventures, and as long as their money remained frozen in credit vouchers, they were loosing hundreds of credits an hour.

As an after though, Sandie reached to the back of the computer and yanked out all of the communication cords, severing the console from the outside. Now all the money was safely stored in vouchers, untouchable until she unlocked the vaults they were stored in. The other two branches in the system located on the planets Vario and Knilerhn would have been locked down as soon as the first explosion ripped through the bank on Iom, shutting down communication. Before Sandie had shut down the system, she had made sure each of the branches' vaults were locked down so as not to open unless she personally unlocked them.

Sandie got up and walked out of the small hidden office. She went over to the credit voucher cabinets and noticed that they were humming with life, sorting a trillion credits into several million accounts. She turned to Eran. He was looking at the cabinets with awe. They seemed alive to him, and he tentatively reached out a hand to touch them as if they were some kind of forbidden fruit. Sandie tried to ignore is fascination. "Now, how do we get out?"

"We wait for a rescue team and hope we don't run out of air in the meantime."

Chapter 12 "New Definition of Safe"

Sanson sat alone at the breakfast table. She waited for almost half an hour without any sign of her husband. She had finished feeding her son and turned him over to the nurse that lived with them before going out to search for her husband. She carried a plate of toast and eggs while wandering around the huge presidential suite. Snotzenexer was sitting in his office staring unbelievably at the screen.

What Sanson saw scared her worse than she had ever been scared before. Snotzenexer was screaming curses at the screen. She could see datacards lying all over the room where her husband had apparently thrown them. His body was boiling over with anger and he could not stay still long enough to even type.

"Dear?" Sanson dared to intrude.

Snotzenexer spun around on his chair, tossing his wife a hideous look. The president and former admiral had always been in such great control over his emotions that this sudden outburst was almost too much for Sanson. That something was wrong was an understatement. From the way Snotzenexer was acting, Sanson wondered if they should run right away to their private shuttle and head to the primitive world they had decided on a few months ago if anything went wrong.

Sanson set the breakfast plate on a small table near the entrance to the office and wisely retreated. The scrimmage was today and she hoped that whatever was wrong with her husband would get better by then. Too much was riding on her performance today to allow her to worry about something else.

Snotzenexer turned back to his screen and continued to futilely scroll down his bank's accounts. They were all gone. Every single credit had been removed and the Varion Imperial Bank had been financially dissolved. At first Snotzenexer had thought his demolition team had been too thorough and had taken out everything, including the vault storage computers, but after checking with the branch on Vario, he realized that everything was truly gone.

Snotzenexer had received a report before he had gone to bed last night that Sandie Hollins had been in her top floor office just a minute before the bank had been destroyed and there was no physical way she could have left the building, yet there was no one else who could have emptied the accounts.

As stupid as all of Snotzenexer's henchmen were, they would never lie to him, and they did not get facts wrong often. That meant that Sandie was indeed in her office moments before the blast. There was no way she could have removed the accounts before the explosion. Snotzenexer had checked them before he went to bed and everything was in place. Now everything was gone.

If she had managed to escape the building before the blast, she would not have had access to a computer that could have done what she did. No, she had done it from in the building from the only place that would not have been affected by the demolition: the vault. How she had gotten down there between the time she had been spotted in her office and the time the bombs had gone off was unimportant, the fact remained that she was alive and obviously suspected foul play or she would have never done what she did.

It was almost night on Iom now, and would be for the next eight hours. Snotzenexer reached over to his com station and called up his team leader on Iom. "Yes, sir," a voice came through a few moments later.

"President Hollins is still alive, Commander Tialents."

"Impossible sir, I saw her myse-" Tialents suddenly realized he was disagreeing with Snotzenexer and wisely ceased speaking.

"She is in the vault below the bank. She needs to be dead before morning. I assume rescue teams are working around the clock to excavate the rubble."

"Yes, sir."

"You will make sure that your team is responsible for the night shift duty of excavating the turbo shaft down to the vault. I want everyone you find to be killed without question or theatrics."

Tialents had been awake for a very long time organizing the exterminator demolition service, and was not looking forward to staying up all night, excavating a very deep turbo shaft. "Yes, sir. Everyone will be dead by morning."

"Snotzenexer out." Snotzenexer leaned back in his chair, somewhat calmed. This was just a temporary setback. Soon Sandie would be dead and Snotzenexer would be able to have all the vaults re-opened and the credits put back into the system. He got up and retrieved the breakfast plate his wife had left for him and ate slowly.

***

Eran felt the breath of fresh air over his face and instantly knew something was wrong. He had decided several hours ago that it would be best if the four of them (the two guards, Sandie, and himself) moved into the vault to sleep. Sandie had managed to program the vault door to stay open so when the rescue team came down the turbo lift shaft they would be able to hear them.

That was the problem. Moving all of the rubble that clogged the shaft should have made a tremendous noise if it had been done quickly, instead Eran's alert senses had heard nothing and he had stayed at the edge of sleep for the past six hours. He felt a breeze on his face and knew that someone had removed the insulation from the hole in the turbo shaft.

The fact that it was fresh air and not smoke meant that the shaft had been cleared during the night and the rescue team was here. The fact that they were not calling out Sandie's name, or making any sound at all, meant they probably had things other than rescuing on their mind.

Eran slowly got up, thankful the rest of his group had remained asleep thus far. The young bodyguard removed both lightsabers from his inner jacket pockets and slowly crept to the edge of the vault. He could hear very muffled sounds of conversation and the soft squish of careful footfalls in the remaining foam. They were not using any lights, which clinched it for Eran that these men were not here on a rescue mission.

The idea that Snotzenexer might send a party down to finish his dirty work seemed remote to Eran, but he also realized that Sandie's actions after the blast had most definitely not gone unnoticed. Eran thought about going back to the security guards and taking a blaster for himself, but he knew he would not be able to get one without waking a guard, and that would make noise.

The lights were turned way down so the foursome could sleep, and since the "rescue crew" were not using lights meant they probably had night vision goggles. Eran searched out the light controls with his hand and poised next to the vault opening.

"We're not here to take prisoners or ask questions," Eran heard one of them saying very quietly. "Anyone we find is to be instantly stunned and then asphyxiated. Snotzenexer will want everything to look natural."

Eran took a deep sigh, knowing now that a fight was definitely going to happen. Mentally he calmed his body, letting every muscle quiver on the edge of action. Eran heard the men approach the short flight of stairs up to the vault, waited two seconds, and then flipped on the lights.

Eran was slightly shocked by the bright lights, but the four Imperials were severely blinded as the light was magnified by their night vision goggles. Eran spun out of the vault, both lightsabers activated. He sliced through two blasters as they were thrust forward and fired blindly. Eran planted a boot in the chest of one of the men, sending him stumbling backwards down the stairs into the man behind him. The other man turned toward the sound, attacking the air above his falling comrade only to receive a lightsaber handle to the face.

The fourth and final man still could not see, but the sound of lightsabers was very recognizable, and he fired in that direction. The bolt seared over Eran's left shoulder, and he quickly leaped down the stairs to land next to poor marksman. The Imperial swung towards the noise and lost the hand holding his blaster. He screamed in pain and fell backwards.

The two men who had fallen together down the stairs had removed their goggles and were bringing their weapons to bear on Eran. The bodyguard did not have an angle for attack and had to dive to the side as the blaster bolts flew past him into the wall. Eran leaped back to his previous position to initiate an attack, but five shots in quick succession snapped his eyes back to the vault.

The two guards had awakened and had disposed of the four Imperials before any of them could do any real damage. The guards looked careful at Eran, wondering what kind character would try to take on four armed men in the dark by himself. Eran ignored the look. "Thanks guys, it's about time you woke up."

By now Sandie had gotten up and walked out of the vault, looking curiously at the four men lying motionless on the floor. "Nice work, Eran," she said humorously. "Now, let's get out of here before Snotzenexer tries again."

Eran noticed a strange edge to her voice. This woman had just been betrayed by her hero, and she was none too happy about it. Sandie locked the vault, making sure no one was going to have access to the credits without her authorization. Eran walked over to the lift shaft and saw there was a small platform with a tractor lock for a beam above on the surface to lift them up.

"Hey, uh, guard," Eran realized he knew neither of the men's names, "get one of their com units." The guard did as he was asked and brought a unit to Eran.

"-thing going down there?"

Eran caught the end of a question as he placed the helmet unit against his ear. "Just fine," Eran replied, guessing what the question was. "The situation has been taken care of. Give us 30 seconds and raise us up." Eran quickly motioned for the two guards to join him in the turbo shaft.

The three men climbed onto the small platform and readied themselves for action. Eran had both of his lightsabers out but deactivated. Eran was not sure if the men above ground would be friendlies or not. The Imperials were going to report that anyone they had found had been asphyxiated by smoke, so it was not necessary to have the whole rescue crew under Snotzenexer's employ. The problem was going to be if only some of the men on the surface were Imperial. Eran had no way to discern between the two, other than if they were shooting at him, and by then it would be too late.

The platform started to rise quickly a few moments later, and Eran readied himself again. There were plenty of lights up on the surface, and Eran could see that lights were being shone down on them from above. "Don't look up," Eran advised them. "If they see we aren't the men that were sent down, things might get ugly."

When they were still half a meter from seeing over the top edge of the shaft, Eran leaped out of the hole. He landed on a sharp pile of permacrete and rolled off onto a softer pile of burnt wood. A spotlight followed his every move and people were crowding around him with very curious looks.

"What's wrong?"

"Hey! Who are you?"

Eran was looking into the faces of genuinely concerned rescue workers. Eran quickly hid his lightsabers back in his jacket and took an offered hand to help him up. Eran looked up into the man's face and saw Commander Tialents, the bridge commander from the Super Star Destroyer. Eran's face was too covered with dirt and soot to be recognized, not that he gave the Imperial a chance. Eran tightened his handhold, turned in a crouch and flipped the man over his shoulder into the heap of burnt wood.

"What on Iom are you doing to him?"

Eran ignored the voices of the men behind him as he jumped onto Commander Tialents. Eran had him pinned quickly and pulled a blaster from the inner regions of the commander's coat. One of the men saw that Eran had taken the blaster from the man he had tackled, and that it was not his.

Eran had the muzzle of the blaster nestled snugly under the man's chin pointed up into his brain. By now the two bank guards were off the platform and standing above Eran with their weapons trained on the pinned commander. To Tialents, the two men looked enormous, backlit by the huge spotlights that were covering the action.

"How many more are there?" Eran asked sharply.

The commander made no move to respond. Eran shoved the gun's tip further into the soft skin at the top of the throat. "We just killed your four friends. I have no qualms about splattering your brains about this rubble you've created. Now tell me if there is anyone else!"

The commander remained silent. Eran thumbed the setting on the blaster to maximum so Tialents could hear the increased humming of the small power plant inside the weapon. "I'm not going to ask you aga-"

Eran suddenly rolled off of the commander as a shot from behind him that had been aimed at his back tore into Tialents. Eran rolled onto his back and sat up, firing his weapon before he even saw what he was shooting at. The two guards had lightening quick reflexes also and all three shots hit the remaining Imperial at once, lifting his body into the air, throwing him several meters back, and dropping him down the turbo shaft.

Eran let out all the pent up adrenaline with a long sigh. He had no idea why he had rolled off the commander at exactly the right time, but he had, and now it was over. Any blame the other rescuers might have wanted to lay on Eran disappeared when they saw that the two men accompanying him were bank guards.

"President Hollins is still down there," one of the guards took control.

Eran tried to get up, but his arms were suddenly weak. He had not come that close to dying, ever. He had not avoided the shot through skill, but pure alertness. He had somehow felt the blast coming at his back before it had even been fired. The realization of all this sent his mind reeling, and he passed out.

***

Luke and Han walked into the smoky atmosphere of the seedy establishment. Luke had followed Han to countless drinking and gaming establishments over the past few weeks and everyone seemed exactly the same. They were all filled with foul odors, smoke, and noise, but once you looked at the patrons you saw that everyone was clean, not smoking, and not yelling.

The gaming tables were filled with quiet, thinking beings playing out their hands with different levels of confidence and skill. There was quiet whispering taking place at the bar as secrets were passed about, and those at the other tables were too busy eating to add to the ambiance. Luke had finally decided that the owners of these bars must pump in the noise, smoke, and smell to remind everyone of the old days when these conditions really existed.

Right now Luke looked around at the patronage and saw dozens of alien versions of Han and Lando. They were smart, rich, and confident that they could never be beaten at their given game of expertise. Luke was wearing the disguise of Delan Fowlry, as he always did, and was finally used to the looks he got. He moved to the bar and sat down amongst a few other Trade Federation Reps.

While Luke took the pulse of the Trade Federation, Han had a much more specific reason for being here. Han saw Derran Speedsting sitting by himself in a booth in the far corner. He stopped by the bar briefly to pick up a couple drinks and carried them to the booth. Derran took the drink without speaking and had half of it drained before Han sat down opposite him.

"Okay, Solo, I'm ready to talk."

"What happened?" Han asked, pretending to not already know.

"I've been put on suspension for a week and then on probation once I start again with reduced pay. I was hit by piratesin the Needle Hole, and lost 24 million worth in cargo. I was fined for not taking the standard shipping route, for having illegal weapons on board, and then for taking my ship to an unauthorized repair facility afterwards. The first two I can understand, but the third is ridiculous. I will take my ship to whomever I please."

Han nodded slowly. Both Lando and Thomas had told Han what was going on and Han had prepared well for this conversation. "Why don't you just quite?"

"And do what?" Derran came back. "There is no life for an independent trader anymore. I suppose I could retire, but I'd much rather be part of your rebellion."

Han's eye's lit up and he cast looks around frantically as if he expected Snotzenexer to be standing next to the table listening. "What did you say?"

"Come off it Han. I know you and your wife have got something planned. I've read the reports Leia gave out months ago saying that Snotzenexer and Sanson were Imperial and wanted to return the galaxy to the Palpatine era. I know you would have never joined this Trade Federation if you weren't planning something. You have more money than you let on; I know it. You could have just taken your family to Corellia and lived out the rest of your lives in comfort. So what's going on?"

This was not what Han had expected at all. He was not sure if this change of events was bad, all he knew was it was definitely different. "Nothing," Han responded honestly. Derran gave him a very untrusting look. "Yet," Han continued for him. "What I want to do is gather together as many pilots as I can and form a union. We don't need to take any action right now, but we need to develop a communication net so that we can organize at a moments notice if something should happen."

"Like what?" Derran asked.

"Have you noticed what Snotzenexer is doing with the galactic commerce?"

Derran shook his head, but he was definitely going to look into it as soon as his suspension was ended.

"He has managed to compile every imaginable function into one enormous device. He has control of the galaxy's food supply, the drug supply, he controls all of the trade going on, he controls almost all the money, and he controls the military. He can cripple any world he wants by putting it under trade sanctions and attacking its financial structure. Think about it. The emperor never had that kind of power. There were always smugglers that could get anything in or out of a planet, and Palpatine never had any control over a planet's financial holdings. Now smuggling has been eliminated and the Galaxy's credit flow goes through one man."

Derran nodded, realizing he already knew everything Han was telling him, he just had not put it in perspective before. "So you want to restrict his control by creating a potential resistance if he ever tries anything."

"Exactly," Han agreed. "What I need is about a hundred names of pilots who will be willing to make a move when the time comes. I have got several dozen people so far, but no solid commitments yet. No one can take me seriously because of my former connections. I need you.

"Of course we don't tell them about Snotzenexer. As far as they are concerned, we are forming a union to fight the poor working conditions and outragous regulations put on us."

Derran nodded. He could think of at least 30 names off the top of his head he could convince. "Let me make some calls, and I'll get back to you." Derran drained the rest of his drink. "What about our TFR's? Mine's a real idiot."

Han looked over to Delan Fowlry. She presently had someone's arm wrenched behind his back and was saying, in no uncertain terms, that if he did not remove his other hand from her thigh, she would rip his arm out of its socket. "We'll have to work around them. I hope when the time comes, they will not matter."

Derran was still looking at the action at the bar where Delan was just now releasing the man she had held in an arm lock. "Whatever you say."

***

The sun was just coming up in the eastern sky, spreading light across the total destruction. Ferris Loyran looked at the sight with increasing trepidation. Was his business next? The bank on Iom had been sacred, revered by every financial establishment six sectors in every direction. Now it lay ruined - a total loss.

Ferris had no illusions about who had done this. Though Snotzenexer seemed to have no possible motive for blowing up his own bank, in Ferris' mind, that lack of motive seemed like the driving force in everything Snotzenexer did. The VCY was in the same position. Snotzenexer had a lot of money tied up in the shipyards and would seem to loose a lot if it were destroyed, but Ferris could also see the benefits of destroying it from Snotzenexer's point of view.

Ferris held a lot of evidence against the Republic President, not to mention almost a dozen Star Destroyers - eight, if he was not mistaken. Also, the VCY was one of the largest construction facilities in the galaxy, and unless Snotzenexer could build a bigger shipyard somewhere else, he was stuck with having the main facility three days away by hyperspace.

The real reason Ferris had come out here in the early morning was because his company's assets had been frozen over night, and he wanted an explanation. He knew that Sandie Hollins was the only one who could have closed his account without his approval, and even though she was the president, Ferris thought she would have at least had to notify him.

After a bit of snooping around, Ferris found that Sandie and her bodyguard had been taken to a nearby hospital as a precautionary measure. They had small scrapes and bruises and had suffered from minor oxygen deprivation, but they were expected to be released by midday.

The hospital was busy with victims of the explosion, and Ferris had a bit of difficulty finding Sandie's room. Though nearly everyone who had been in the bank was dead and there was nothing any hospitol anywhere could do for them, there had been dozens of people just outside the building who had suffered non-lethal injuries. Visitors to the president were being restricted, but Sandie was awake and insisted on seeing the President of the VCY.

Ferris walked into the room and closed the door to all the commotion out in the hallway. There were two beds in the room, and Ferris did not recognize the young man in the other bed. Sandie saw the pause at the unfamiliar face and reassured him. "It's okay, Ferris. He knows more than we do. He saved my life at least three times already, and I'd entrust mine or anyone else's to him for the rest of this ordeal."

Ferris nodded and took a seat next to Sandie's bed. The female president was sitting up, looking very well with an IV hypo in her arm and a couple respiratory sensors emerging from between buttons in the front of her gown. "What happened?"

"Do you mean 'What really happened?' or 'What I've been telling the reporters happened?'" Sandie paused, making doubly sure no media personel were near the door. "Snotzenexer blew up the bank, trying to erase all record of his take over and subsequent dealings dating back over seven months ago. We suspect that he is planning a merger with the CGB, and this demolition not only covered up incriminating evidence, but also made such a merger much more of a necessity."

"What happened to my money?"

Sandie smiled despite Ferris' stern look. "It's safe."

"This must be some strange usage of the word 'safe' I wasn't aware of, because when I last checked, my account in your bank totaled to 0.00 credits, when yesterday at this time it was over 450 billion."

"I was forced to liquidate it before Snotzenexer could grab it. I couldn't just transfer it to another bank or even freeze it. I needed to take it out of the public domain entirely. Anything short of that and Snotzenexer would have had the authority to do with it as he liked."

"And what would he have done with it?" Ferris asked.

"He would have placed your account in the CGB just like he did with the Trade Federation, and his new health organization. The Trade Federation had made up over three fourths of the VIB's holdings. With the rest of the big corporations he yanked before he pushed the big red button to blow me up, I was only left with less than a tenth of the bank's previous holdings."

"How could he do this? I thought we had agreed he wasn't a banker before. He shouldn't have the know how."

"He's been an Imperial officer his entire life," Eran put in just to show he was listening and he knew what they were talking about.

Both presidents ignored the comment. "He is getting help from people at the CGB. We figure he promised to move the main offices of the VIB to Coruscant after the merger to make the boys on Coruscant to agree to the deal."

"So he is going to merge 90% of the VIB's wealth and its name with the CGB. Sounds like he pulled it off. Even if you hadn't done what you did and Snotzenexer had gotten everything moved, it's not like people would have had to make a trip to Coruscant every time they wanted to make a transaction. The other VIB branches in the Varion system would have still been functioning."

"Yes," Sandie agreed, "but you forget that Snotzenexer doesn't plan to let everything go on as normal. There is one thing that you, and every other citizen in this galaxy, who has a bank account, are forgetting. Once you deposit money in a bank, that money is no longer yours. It is the bank's to do with at it pleases. If the bank is not careful with it, people will find out and will no longer deposit in that bank. So it behooves us bank presidents to invest our customer's money wisely so we can offer them hefty interest rates. You give a bank money and they will turn around and give it to someone else as a 30 year mortgage at 10%. They then offer you 4% on your money and they turn a nice 6% profit. Banks are not holding your money for you until you want it back. We are spending it as soon as we get it, trying to make as much money with it until you ask for it back.

"Right now, the CGB has over a thousand branches spreading all over Republic space. They have been through so many mergers and have swallowed so many smaller banks that they have surpassed any potential competitor by so much it isn't even worth comparing. This means that Snotzenexer will have access to all the money in every account of every citizen of the Republic. If he were a responsible bank president, he would invest these thousands of trillions of credits wisely so the galaxy would be making money along with him.

"However, if he were a ruthless Imperial dictator, he would spend all the money on Star Destroyers and Imperial super structures. Profits would go down and people would withdrawal their money. The problem is that their money is gone. It's been turned into Imperial hardware that Snotzenexer has no intention of returning to the public. Now everyone all over the galaxy is broke. But that's okay, right? Since everyone is broke, prices can drop on everything and no one will notice, right? Instead of everyone being rich and food costing 10 credits a kilogram, now everyone is poor and it costs 1 credit a kilogram.

"Wrong. Not everyone is poor. The government is rich. They spent all the money on state of the art equipment, and they are not starving. Snotzenexer controls the food and the medicine and supplies of all kind through the Trade Federation, which is also rich. Normally the traders would have to drop their prices so the general public could buy their product and they could make money. Not the case here. You see the Trade Federation already has all the people's money. They have no real reason to drop prices.

"The result of this is that people still need to eat. They still need to build things. This means that they still need to buy things from the Trade Federation, and ultimately, Snotzenexer. Since they don't have money, they'll need to mortgage their military, or their cities, or their entire planets, in hope that Snotzenexer will extend them enough credits so they can feed their people. Soon, Snotzenexer will literally own the entire galaxy."

"The senate will never go along with this," Ferris argued.

"Who says they have to? The Republic does not own the CGB or the VIB. They do not own, or have any influence over the Trade Federation. The senate might control the military, but they don't own any shipyards. Before Snotzenexer took over, the government had no money. That was the reason Snotzenexer was elected in the first place. The problem is he didn't rectify the situation. All he's done is build up an enormous monetary cache with the VIB and has used that to start all his operations. If Snotzenexer was voted out of office, he would take the VIB and now the CGB with him, and the Republic would be broke again. Meanwhile, Snotzenexer would still have control of the Trade Federation and would own enough shipyards to build his own military. Don't forget his wife is the Republic's Admiral. He might no longer be president, but he would rule the galaxy as if he still were."

"Then the people won't go along with it," Ferris tried to argue. "I mean he's only one person. He might be able to order military raids, but it takes several thousand people to carry it out."

Sandie had had a lot of time to think about this. "You are forgetting one thing. Snotzenexer has all the money. If you are not with Snotzenexer you will have no money. Everyone in the Trade Federation will have a lot of money. If they don't like what Snotzenexer is doing, they can quite, but they will go hungry. People on the outside will be lining up in droves to join the military because people in the military are living in the lap of luxury. Snotzenexer won't have a problem with people not wanting to be in his ruthless military, he'll have a problem with too many people trying to join.

"Money blinds a lot of people. Remember that most of the Trade Federation traders are former smugglers. People on the inside might hear about famine and plagues going on elsewhere, but since they don't see it for themselves they tend to not believe it. It's hard for a professional sprinter to really sympathize with a cripple because he not only has no idea what that's like, but he can't even comprehend not having the ability to walk."

Sandie's last comment reminded Ferris about Jon. He had a connection, however faint it was, with the new rebellion that was going to have to put a stop to this change. "So what did withdrawing my money do to stop this?"

"Your money didn't do a darn thing. However, saving Joe Blow's account of 65,000 credits did a lot. Now Joe will still have all his money when Snotzenexer starts cashing the rest of the galaxy's credits, and he will be one of the rich ones, along with everyone else in this system whose account I saved."

"Can we do anything else to stop him?"

"Like I said before, removing him from office isn't enough. We need to severe all of his ties with the numerous corporations he has running the galaxy."

"You mean we need to kill him."

Sandie said nothing, but Eran was nodding slowly. In order to get to Snotzenexer you had to get though his wife. "How many Star Destroyers do you still have?"

"Eight," Ferris said, "but Snotzenexer is going to swing by and pick them up any time now, especially since he can no longer control my business financially."

"Do you have enough people to fly them?"

Ferris shook his head.

"Can you hire them?"

"I don't have any money, remember. All my money is sitting in 450,000 credit vouchers in your bank's vault."

"I'll give you a loan," Sandie managed a laugh.

"Sure I can get the people, and they can be trained in a matter of days, but I don't know jack about warfare. Snotzenexer could send two ships against my eight and emerge victorious beca-"

Ferris stopped speaking suddenly as the door to the hospital room opened. A nurse walked in and set a datapad on the table next to Sandie's bed. "Here are the morning news reports you asked for," the nurse said quickly before leaving.

Ferris started to continue his complaint, but Sandie held up her hand to stop him as she read down the list of headlines. Towards the end of the reports, she found something that set an alarm off on her respiratory monitors. The nurse came rushing back in, but Sandie dismissed her quickly. "I think I know where we can find your military leadership."

Chapter 13 "Pregame"

Snotzenexer was looking at the same report. The headline said: "Investigation of the Porylen Entertainment Network Disaster still Open." Snotzenexer controlled his anger as he read the report.

"Seven months ago the PEN main office building was hit by, what was then believed to be, a terrorist attack against its pro-government propaganda. The brewing civil war on Porylen has since been put down, but leaders of the rebel factions still deny responsibility for the incident. Recent reports from an investigative team may lend weight to that claim.

"Analysis of the building's remains immediately after the explosion showed enormous amounts of an unknown chemical compound believed to have been the main cause of the explosion. This chemical was found nowhere in the rebel's seized explosive storerooms and has baffled scientific analysts until recently. A scientific investigator who wishes to remain nameless has positively identified the chemical as carbonized gonst.

"Gonst is a very rare gaseous substance that becomes highly explosive when it undergoes rapid temperature fluctuations. Otherwise the gas is very inert, which explains why it has gone unidentified for so long. The only recorded existence of gonst is deep within the Danzig system. Officials do not believe that the local rebels had the resources necessary to collect the large amount of gonst required to cause the devastation that afflicted the PEN office building.

"In an effort to prove the findings, a scientific research team tracked down several of the asteroids that had flown through the Denorid system during the disaster that struck the system, similarly, seven months ago. It was hypothesized, but never proven, that the sudden acceleration of the asteroids from the Danzig system into the Denorid system was due to explosive gonst trapped inside the asteroids, as the rare gas is common to the Danzig system.

"Upon locating the asteroids, the research team discovered no gonst residue present on the asteroids at all. They found numerous incidents of carbon scoring from the last second rescue efforts of the Republic fleet, and they also found residue of a fusion reaction on several of the asteroids comparable with what a thermal detonator might leave behind.

"Forgetting about the gonst, in light of this new discovery, the team is now looking into what might have caused these asteroids to accelerate, causing the deaths of several billion Denorians. After looking at the mineral composition of the asteroids, the team no longer believes they originated in the Danzig system.

"Officials are still puzzled as to who might have been responsible for the PEN office building attack or where the responsible party might have acquired gonst in such a large quantity. The only reports of any activity in the Danzig system over the past ten years has been Imperial, but they were defeated nine months ago and no Imperial activity has been noted in the Varion system since."

Snotzenexer was not in the habit of loosing his temper, but today seemed like a good day for it. Leia, Wedge, and whoever else might be running this news release obviously had their wits about them now. The last line so obviously implied Sanson that it was laughable not to have included her in the report. But by not directly stating Sanson's presence in the Varion system, the readers (and there must be trillions reading this report) had the chance to arrive at that inconsistency themselves. People always believed things they thought of themselves more strongly than those things spoon-fed them by the media. Now all across the galaxy people were playing detective and strolling back in their own personal news files to see exactly what Sanson's reported history was.

Once they started to speculate if Sanson had been responsible, they would also wonder if Snotzenexer's stock move against PEN was luck or planned. At the time, Snotzenexer had no trouble passing the move off as "a hunch." But back then, no one knew there were Imperials hiding in the asteroid field. No one knew that Snotzenexer was married to their admiral. And no one knew what gonst was or that it only came from the Danzig system.

The fact that his team of demolition experts had used gonst should not have been surprising to him. The gas needed absolutely no refining for use as an explosive and it had been in abundant supply in the Danzig system. The Empire had collected thousands of tons of the stuff and still had plenty of it in the-

The VIB explosion. Snotzenexer had given his men a cover of exterminators carrying in canister after canister of explosive bug repellent. Of course they used gonst. It made the most sense. The inert gas would not show up on the bank's security system, they already had lots of it handy, and anything else would have cost a lot more and required more advanced explosive techniques.

Snotzenexer was glad this report had not come out any earlier. Sanson was already on her ship, preparing for the scrimmage this afternoon. The mock battle was to take place on Coruscant prime time holovision. Snotzenexer could only hope that the predetermined outcome would paint his wife in a good light.

***

All across the galaxy many people were reading the report, but very few people had begun to seriously accuse Sanson of the attack. Though everyone saw the possibility, the report was coming from the Galactic Inquirer a noted tabloid that rarely published fact. The difference here was that the Inquirer had been silent ever since the destruction of PEN. Also, the subject matter was far more serious than the affair ridden reports that normally filled the datacards of the tabloid.

There was one person other than Snotzenexer and Sandie who was taking the report a little more seriously than others. Cayron Moall had authorized Borrel Curtis to submit this report without ever really looking at what he was publishing. This was not the lie he had asked for; this looked like solid fact. Cayron looked up from his desk to see Curtis standing there.

"This isn't fiction, is it?" he asked.

Curtis shook his head.

"This reports claims to also be responsible for the first one that was released. Is that true? Did you know who had released the first report about the prolan gas?"

Curtis nodded his head.

"Do you know more?"

"Yes," Curtis responded verbally. "The report states that the asteroids are not from the Danzig system due to their mineral composition. We know where they are from."

"Who is 'we?'"

Curtis just smiled at the producer. "The asteroids are from the Varion system."

That was a bombshell. "Are you telling me that someone brought those asteroids to the Denorid system and aimed them at the Denorians?"

"You said it, sir, not me."

Cayron was sweating now. "What else do you know?"

"Everything," Curtis responded.

"Can you publish it?"

"That's up to you," Curtis said. "You asked me to blame the PEN explosion on Snotzenexer. I did that. If you want me to say he is responsible for the Denorid catastrophe, I can do that. If you want me to say that he is responsible for the disaster on Xentin that started the economic chain reaction you in the 'Documentary' call the 'Snotzenexer Miracle,' I can do that. If you want me to say that Snotzenexer was an Imperial Commander a year ago and fought in the Danzig battle, I can do that. If you want me to say that Snotzenexer was the commanding officer that led the Imperial attack on Yavin IV, I can do that. If you want me to say that Snotzenexer was responsible for blowing up his own bank yesterday, though I don't have the evidence now, from the confusion the investigators are having with nailing down what kind of explosive that was used, I'm pretty sure it was gonst, and I can do that. However, if you want to continue your Documentary, I suggest we hold off on this information until you've finished praising your hero."

"To the maw with the Documentary."

Right then Curtis realized that Cayron's loyalty toward Snotzenexer went only as far as the rating system. If he had something that was going to get more people to watch his station, then he was going to air that instead.

"How soon can you have it ready?"

"Have what ready, sir?"

"Everything," Cayron said. "I want everything."

"In writing, I can everything in two days. If you want a holovision broadcast it will take a week to get holo footage of everything."

"Take whoever and whatever you need. My secretaries and staff are at your disposal. I'll extend you a credit line for this project that will not have a ceiling. I want this information compiled as quickly and as professionally as possible." Cayron was looking very ill. He did not own the Torenick Broadcasting Company, but he ran it. His company was about to break open the biggest story since the invention of story telling, and he was a little nervous that it was not going to be good news.

***

Han and Derran were sitting in a bar in front of a huge holo display. The scrimmage was going to take place in an hour and the Coruscant Holocasting Company had been playing up their live broadcast for the past week. They were treating it like it was the Galaxy Series of smashball. There were dozens of holo-probes floating all over the battle area with play-by-play announcers monitoring each one.

They had decided to let the fight take place inside Coruscant's system. The capitol of the Republic was the second planet from the sun, with five others in a more distant orbit. None of these were habitable, but all had very different characteristics. There was an iceball, a gas giant, a planet made almost entirely out of metal ore, a planet with three rings that moved independently of each other, and one of the planets had twelve moons.

The orbits of these planets were not parallel and differed by as much as 90 degrees in some cases. The opposing fleets would start on opposite sides of the system with the inner two planets, including Coruscant, off limits. All the ships were equipped with optical weapons that would simulate damage.

Han knew something bad was going to happen, but also knew there was nothing he could do about it. He and Derran had just compiled a list of over 120 pilots who had agreed to go along with them if something should happen where they needed to form a unionr. Han had in turn given the list to Luke, and the Jedi Master was forwarding it to Ghent so the computer wizard could program them into the Trade Federation computer. Ghent would need to be able to control the group as one and would need to add flags to each of their ID's in the system.

***

Eran, Sandie, Jon, and Ferris were in a VCY ship flying to Torenick, the home planet of the Torenick Broadcasting Company. This was who had submitted the report on the asteroids and the PEN explosion. To Jon it sounded like something Thomas would do, and he suggested they drop in for a visit to see if they could find some of his friends.

In the hold of the VCY freighter, was Jon's new ship. The M-wing had been built in three days and only flown once, but Jon was more than willing to pit it against any ship in existence. If he had to go to battle right now, he felt he might be able to summon enough strength to get out of his chair and run down to the hold under his own power. He had never been this anxious for a fight in his life.

Presently the four of them were also gathered around a holoviewer getting ready to watch the mock battle. This teasing of a fight mocked Jon's state of mind, but he realized that very shortly he was probably going to have to fight against Sanson and her minions again. He wanted to remind himself of how well Victer, Victor, and Victir, the Imperial clones who had challenged the 185th before they had escaped, flew in battle.

***

Leia, Thomas, and Curtis sat in front of a holoviewer also. They were in a production room at TBC, taking a break from compiling all of the evidence against Snotzenexer. It was 2:00am on Torenick, but the three had forgotten what sleep was, for the moment. Thomas feared the worst from this scrimmage. He could not imagine Sanson and Snotzenexer not taking advantage of this sanctioned war to reek as much havoc as they could before it was over. But like Han realized, there was absolutely nothing they could do about, so they just sat back and watched.

***

Vince, Bep, Wedge, and Perry were too busy training the Jedi to fly the modified TIE's to even know the broadcast was on, but Mara, Lando, and Ra'tok were watching inside one of the Academy's media rooms. Mara still held a lot of animosity towards Sanson for the humiliation the admiral had given her back when she had tried to rescue Luke from the Admiral's Super Star Destroyer.

Sanson had mocked her efforts by releasing Luke on her own, pretending all the time to be impressed by Mara's skills when the admiral had set up the entire escapade in the first place. Mara figured this scrimmage would end badly for the Republic, and it would accelerate the upcoming battle between their small resistance force and Sanson's rather large fleet. Right now Mara was only aware of the two dozen fighters they had found and a few personal ships owned by Han, Lando, and herself. It was not enough to win the upcoming fight, but Mara was certain she would get her revenge on Sanson one way or another.

***

Sanson paced on the bridge to her Super Star Destroyer, the Dark Fist, wishing her son were with her. She had left the baby with the nurse, but Sanson had now been away from him for over six hours and was realizing how attached she had become. The idea of a baby on the bridge of a war ship during battle was ludicrous, and Sanson tried to put it out of her mind.

Instead, she began to review the battle. She had three commanding officers to aid her in fighting this battle. The fight was taking place in the Coruscant system, which offered several strategic possibilities, and Sanson did not want to have the entire fight take place in one location. She knew that her and Snotzenexer's battle minds were superior to anyone the Republic had, and she did not want to waste that talent in a toe to toe brawl.

The Republic had five captains, while she had herself and three recently promoted captains. Sanson figured two of the Republic captains would come at her ship while the others would divide against her remaining commanders. There would probably be four separate fights going on at once, something that would give the holo broadcasters fits.

The three captains Sanson had were Captains Pearson, Paxtin, and Krychink. Pearson was an idiot, but very good at giving orders and very easy to control. He had been Snotzenexer's puppet for a long time in the Denorid system, and Sanson hoped she could pull the strings on him just as well during this battle.

Paxtin had been the commander who had met Harmeon when the bacta tycoon had attacked Custom Shields Galactica on Rembon. He had not been responsible for any real difficult strategic execution, but he had pulled off the maneuver without incident, and had a lot of command experience.

Krychink had been left in command of the Varion system after Sanson had pulled out. The Imperials had left a few operational ships in the system to protect against rebel espionage. There, Krychink had succeeded in shooting down one of the three fighters that had caused Sanson so many headaches in the past.

The three were not strategic masters; in fact, they all paled in comparison to what the Republic had to offer, mostly because they had never seen real battle before. Sanson did not worry about this, though. She already knew how this battle was going to end.

On the Republic side, Captains Collins, Allenkar, Gencron, Yun, and Dwenqr were preparing to meet the Imperial defectors in battle. Sanson had studied their profiles extensively.

The two weak links in the chain were Captains Yun and Dwenqr. Yun was simply an idiot. He came from a planet of mentally inferior humans, among which, he was the smartest. He had risen to the top of the local military, and when his planet had joined the Republic, he was promoted to captain.

Captain Dwenqr was a short-tempered, fat man that belonged in an Imperial uniform. Instead he hated the Imperials, and Sanson half expected him to shoot real ammunition for a few moments in the battle and later claim it was a mistake.

Sanson also had her eyes on Captain Collins. The man was made in Han Solo's image. From Corellia, the confident spokesman for the quintet of captains did not believe he was capable of failure and was always the first one to start arguing with Sanson when she started to discuss strategies.

Captain Allenkar and Captain Gencron were similar to Ackbar and Antilles respectively. They were both quiet and brilliant. Sanson would worry a little if they each chose to attack one of her other captains once the battle started, but she figured at least one of them would be drawn to her Super Star Destroyer.

***

"Thank-you, Jerybick," the holo announcer said, turning away from his associate to face the camera. "Now that you've met the main officers involved, let's show you the battle field." The holo-view suddenly zoomed out to an imaginary camera looking at the entire Coruscant system. The digitized version of the planets rotated in a dizzying display as the view cycled through each of the planets

The holo-view settled on the most distant planet in the system, rotating around the digitized planet in a realistic display. "Vonda, the smallest and most often forgotten planet has little worth from a resource or strategic standpoint. It is a frozen gaseous planet, whose surface has never been explored. Likely this planet will not play a large role in the upcoming fight."

The view switched to the next planet. "Kevjander is the largest planet in the system. It is an extremely hot gas giant whose gravity well has sucked in many stray asteroids and a comet or two in the past half millennia. This planet could be used effectively by a cunning captain, though navigation through its upper atmosphere is very dangerous."

The next planet. "Timzahn is by far the most spectacular of the seven planets in the Coruscant system. Its three rings of sparkling ice crystals and space dust move about the blue planet independently of each other. Its solar eclipse as seen from Coruscant once every 87 years is simply spectacular.

"Mickube is the fourth planet from the sun and was a huge disappointment when explored by the ancient Coruscant civilization. The large red planet has 12 moons in orbit and many ancient scientists had thought it capable of supporting life, but the rock doesn't contain even a trace of water and has been left untouched for the most part.

"Barbahamb is the closest planet to Coruscant, and has been used more than any other planet in the system. It is saturated with many different metal ores and is still covered with domed mining complexes trying to draw more resources out of the small planet. Many critics say that the planet had given up all it could back in the growth period of Coruscant when 60% of the construction on the city planet had taken place, but miners still continue to try to get more out of the stripped planet."

The holo-view skipped Coruscant and moved the final planet. "Acrispin is out of play during this fight. This is where all of the 'killed' ships are to go until the scrimmage is over. It is a small, volcano-covered planet that is far too hot to ever be explored, and has never made any real contributions to the rest of the system."

With the battlefield laid out, the holo-view went back to the two announcers. Jerybick, who had given the bios on the captains, took over now. "Thanks, Andres. Now it looks like we are only moments away from the start of this contest, and the ships around us are beginning to take their places."

***

Sanson had her Super Star Destroyer, 19 Star Destroyers, hundreds of fighters, and a motley collection of freighters and other ships she had captured from Imperial pirates over the past several months. The Republic had two dozen capitol ships, not quite as many fighters, but a lot more corvettes, frigates, and freighters than their opponents. It was a pretty even firefight once the numbers were added up, and together, the fleet could put down any resistance anywhere in the galaxy.

This was not the total strength of the Republic. There were easily five times as many ships scattered all over the galaxy, but they could not realistically be pulled off duty just to participate in a game.

Without much fanfare, the battle started.

Nothing happened for a long while. The ships continued to spread out taking advantage of the enormous amount of space allotted to them. Like the first round in a boxing match, neither side was looking for a knockout. They wanted to feel out their opponent to see what the other had planned.

Both fleets were outside of the huge system on opposite sides, waiting for someone to come charging in first. Pearson was the first to attack. He had the most capitol ships on the Imperial side with seven Star Destroyers, and he sent three of them fast toward Kevjander. Several freighters and middle class assault ships followed the charge while the four remaining Star Destroyers trailed in an organized flanking procedure.

Captain Allenkar made the counter move, sending his fleet of five Calamarian Cruisers, three Corvettes, and seven assault frigates racing to the gas giant.

Captain Dwenqr was next, barging his three Calamarian Cruisers, two Carrack light cruisers, and three escort carriers into the middle of the system without aiming at any particular planet.

Captain Krychink met this charge with his five Star destroyers, two minor Dreadnoughts, and several Strike-class small cruisers loaded down with TIE's.

The rest of the combatants did not move right away and nonchalantly crept about the fringes of the battlefield, waiting to see what happened in this initial skirmish.

Captain Allenkar was quickly approaching Kevjander and noticed that Pearson was using the huge planet as a shield for his charging ships. The four flanking Star Destroyers stayed back and wide, feeding the charging fleet Allenkar's trajectory, allowing the first ships to keep the planet between the two sides.

Allenkar did not want to be surprised by the charging fleet suddenly appearing around the planet when he was not ready for them, and was forced to drop two of the valuable assault frigates back to monitor the Imperial's charging ships.

As soon as the two frigates fell behind, Pearson sent all but one of his trailing Star Destroyers at an angle far above the gas giant and in plain view of Allenkar's entire fleet. The first three Imperial capitol ships and their collection of smaller assault ships were nearly upon the large planet now, and Allenkar needed to make a decision.

The last information the Calamarian captain had of the charging ships was that they appeared to be preparing to hug the North Pole of the planet as they flew around. His charging ships were nearly at the planet now too, and he released two dozen fighters composed of X-wings and E-wings. Half of the ships went around the west side of the planet, while the other half spun around the east side. Allenkar dumped the remaining dozen of his fighters out in front of his fleet, which stopped several kilcks from the planet. He also sent two cruisers and the remaining frigates straight up to meet the trailing three Star Destroyers that had made the late charge.

Unseen by Allenkar, Pearson also unloaded his fighters, two dozen TIE interceptors and three dozen modified TIE fighters, and sent the majority of them over the top of the planet. The remaining ships with a dozen TIE fighters altered course drastically and circumvented the huge gas giant via the South Pole.

Only the ships high above the planet could see each other, and engaged in some long-range exchange of fire before they closed on each other. The three Destroyers emptied three dozen fighters into the mix, and the two cruisers answered with two dozen B and E-wings. The fighters met before the capitol ships did, and the scrimmage was finally joined.

Down around the planet, Allenkar saw the fighters and interceptors coming over the gas giant like a hive of hungry bees. The fewer Republic fighters stayed near their mother ships as long as possible before meeting the charge. Allenkar had just gotten his fleet oriented toward the incoming fighters, ready for the slower capitol ships to follow, when the attack from below hit.

The Republic captain felt his ship's stabilizers simulate torpedo hits as the fighters, and then the rest of Pearson's fleet ambushed him from below. At this moment on the other side of the planet, the two dozen Republic fighters had just finished the path around the planet without finding an enemy. The squadron commanders ordered half the ships to veer down under the planet, while the rest went north.

Allenkar had his ships fire their reverse thrusters to draw the attacking Imperials out from below and above him, and instead put them in front. The two groups of Imperial ships slowly came together in front of the Republic ships just as the late arriving X and E-wings joined the party from above and below. A dozen TIE's were knocked out of commission in the brief confusion that followed, as well as two assault shuttles, an Imperial Blastboat, and a Calamarian Cruiser.

Captains Krychink and Dwenqr did not have a planet to play with and settled for a dangerous game of chicken with their fleets. They hit each other with pot shots at a distance but were too busy avoiding a deadly collision when they got closer to really do any damage close up.

After passing, Krychink kept going on a suicide run against the remaining three Republic Captains' fleets. He was sorely outnumbered but did manage to finally get the reluctant Captains to join the fray. Dwenqr saw an opportunity to pinch Krychink between his fleet and the rest of the Republic ships and quickly turned about to give chase.

Krychink saw this pursuit and altered his course so he would not get caught. He had not yet engaged any of the other Republic ships, but he had made Captain Collins enter the battlefield. Collins directed his ships toward Mickube, and the jumbled lunar orbits of the 12 moons.

Captain Paxtin, on the Imperial side, saw this move and sent his ships to meet Collins. Sanson, Gencron, and Yun were yet to commit themselves to an area, and the three fleets continued to mosey about the perimeter.

The battle was just about to get interesting.

Chapter 14 "The Scrimmage"

Captain Pearson had a lot of initial success against Allenkar, but now the more seasoned captain was getting the upper hand. Sanson had given Pearson the opening move, thus its success, but now the Imperial captain was being boxed in. The frigates and cruisers that had been sent away from the planet to meet the three Star Destroyers had managed to get above the Imperial ships and force them down toward the planet. Now the Imperials were backed against the planet with ships above and in front of them.

Captain Gencron saw this advantage, and also saw that if Allenkar had just a few more ships he could complete the siege and finish this portion of the Imperial fleet quickly. Allenkar would probably win no matter what, but to deal a quick blow to the other side this early would sway the tide of the battle in the Republic's favor immensely.

Gencron quickly sent his fleet toward Kevjander hoping to get there before Pearson saw the small opening for escape. Sanson saw the opening and told Pearson about it, but the dim-witted Captain thought he could handle it. He did not see Gencron coming with reinforcements. Sanson put her fleet in motion now, heading towoard the large gas giant to let her Super Star Destroyer settle the dispute.

Captain Krychink realized he could not outrun Dwenqr in the small arena in which they had been given to fight. The Imperial had something special planed. He put himself in line with the large Coruscant sun and began to move toward Timzahn, the three ringed planet.

Dwenqr's sensors found it hard to track the Imperial ships with the large sun as a backdrop, and the Republic Captain had to alter his course, to change his line of sight. As a result, Krychink had gotten a bigger lead but had also started to turn around to meet Dwenqr.

The Imperial captain looped his ships around very near the outer ring of the spectacular planet, and headed back the way he had come. Dwenqr saw the change of course and slowly began to alter his own trajectory to meet the charge again.

Elsewhere, Captain Collins had reached Mickube first and had already begun to distribute his cruisers, assault frigates, corvettes, and gunships among the complex orbital patterns of the dozen moons. Captain Paxtin smiled at the sight, glad that Sanson and Snotzenexer were on his side. He or Krychink had had orders to try and lure Collins into this area, but Sanson had thought he might also go there on his own.

Collins was the most experienced captain on the Republic's side, and therefore, had developed tactics and strategies that he enjoyed using. His favorite was using asteroids, in this case moons, to hide his ships and confuse his adversary. He had fought and defeated many Imperial rogues using this tactic. There was an instance, though, nine years ago when an Imperial Admiral had destroyed over half of Collins attack force and severely crippled his command ships before the Republic Captain had pulled out the victory. Though Collins had won, the Imperial command ship had escaped and was never heard from again. The Imperial was Admiral Grestip.

***

Leia and Borrel were growing tired of the scrimmage and wandered away from the holo-projector to get some stimsuline and continue work on the news report they were preparing for release. Thomas was about to go with them, thinking that maybe the Imperials were going to play it straight when he noticed the activity around Mickube's moons.

"That's interesting," he said slowly, sitting back down in his chair and focusing back on the battle. The Coruscant Holocasting Company had realized before the battle that they were not going to be able to show all the action on one channel, and had reserved four different ones to monitor the fight. Because of this, Thomas was able to pick the channel that was only focusing on the action around the moons.

He watched carefully as Captain Paxtin deployed his TIE interceptors, and the three dozen fighters paired up. They formed 18 pairs of fighters, each group flying in-line. "Can't be," Thomas said under his breath.

From the view the holo-probe was giving him, Thomas could see one of the pairs approaching a capitol ship nestled behind a moon. There was lots of other fighter traffic around the ships, with TIE fighters engaging X-wings and Y-wings, but the interceptors stayed focused.

Thomas was drawn to the action, his face just centimeters away from the hologram. The two interceptors flew around the moon, the first one unloading a hefty barrage of laser fire on the hidden ship, while its trail did nothing.

"Fire . . .NOW!" Thomas said talking to the tiny ships in front of his face. As if they heard him, the second ship unleashed two simulated torpedoes. The projectiles would have exploded against the back of the first interceptor, but at the last second, the lead ship veered away from the Republic cruiser, following its smooth contour, and the two missiles smashed into the cruiser causing a massive explosion. The second ship was not done yet, emptying its laser batteries into the sore spot on the ship.

"Ah ha, yes!" Thomas screamed, thrusting his fist into the injured cruiser. The Coruscant Holocasting Company had fitted their holo probes to show simulated damage when a ship was hit, and the image of cruiser was smoking badly. "Nice job!"

"Who are you rooting for, anyway?" Leia asked from the doorway. She had just returned from the kitchen with a steaming mug, and saw Thomas punching a Republic ship and cheering when it was hit.

"Huh," the former Imperial Captain turned around, startled. "Oh, that was nothing. I just caught them using one of my moves."

"Your moves?"

"Yea, my moves. I used to teach at the Imperial Officer's Academy, you know. During the early days of the rebellion, long before you got organized, one of the tactics used against the Imperials was what your, uh," he looked at the hologram where all the ships were labeled, "Captain Collins is doing right now. You hide all your ships behind asteroids or moons while your fighters engage in dog fighting. Capitol ships are too clumsy to do any real maneuvering in the cramped quarters of asteroids, so the other fleet can only send in their fighters.

"Meanwhile, some of the fighters belonging to the hiding fleet are really just gathering information on the opponent's capitol ships and relaying it to the hidden ships. The hidden capitols then pop out of hiding for a few seconds at a time and fire. Since they know exactly where the enemy is, they don't have to spend time getting missile locks or aiming their weapons. They take a couple shots, and then pop back behind a rock before the other guys can fire back. Then a different ship pops out of hiding with the coordinates of a ship relayed in from the fighters, fires, and hides again.

"It's a good strategy to use when you are out gunned because you can do a lot of damage to them without absorbing a lot yourself. The draw back is that it takes a long time to cause any real damage because you are only popping out of hiding every once in a while. This means your fighter pilots have to be really good to keep the enemy occupied. Of course, during the rebellion, they were really good, and we needed to develop a way to combat the tactic."

Thomas motioned to the holo-projector. "This is what I thought of. The weakness in the tactic is that while the enemy can't see you, you can't see a whole lot either. So when you see the pair of fighters coming around your asteroid, or moon, or whatever you're hiding behind, you only see the first one. It unloads its laser battery in one spot and your shields are depleted. The capitol ship's guns didn't have enough time to track it because it only saw it once it cleared the asteroid. The first ship veers away just as the ship might get a lock on it, and the automatic guns follow.

"The capitol ship never sees the second ship and before the guns can get back in line to hit it, it has already unloaded two torpedoes and a ton of laser fire. In essence, you get two runs on a ship in one, and all of the fire power is aimed at one part of the ship, usually the communications section so it can no longer receive information from the fighters."

Leia gave the captain an evil smirk. "So you are reason lots of rebels died in combat?"

Thomas was scared for a moment, not sure if the former rebel leader was going to take revenge or not. "Too bad you weren't around for the Death Star, you could have really kicked our butts." Leia left the room leaving Thomas guessing.

He did not focus too much of his attention on it though, and turned back to his tactics being put into use. What Thomas did not know, and what he would have found far more interesting, was that on board Captain Collins' ships, small amounts of prolon gas were slowly being released through the ventilation ducts.

***

While Paxtin was keeping Collins busy, things were about to take a turn for the worse with Captain Dwenqr. The Imperials had mapped out the region around Timzahn very extensively for this moment in the battle. Captain Krychink was constantly feeding Dwenqr's fleet coordinates of into his ship's computer, and then altering his flight plan accordingly.

Dwenqr began to squint as the sun came into view again and tried to alter his course, but he would be turning his fleet against Krychink, giving the Imperial a clear shot on the side of his ships. Dwenqr continued to watch as his opponent changed his approach vector once more, and he responded. The Republic captain began to see that the ringed planet would soon block out the sun if this charge continued to progress as it was. Dwenqr smiled, wondering if the Imperial knew this.

Krychink knew it all too well and also knew that all the angles had to be perfect. He made one last correction to his course, and began to target the nearing cruisers. Dwenqr prepared his fleet's weapons as the ships adjusted to this latest change, bringing Timzahn even closer to eclipsing the sun. The spectacular planet was covering half of the sun now, and the rings were sparkling brilliantly. Because this was not a real battle (yet), most of the Republic crew took a moment to view this sight.

Twenty seconds later, Timzahn eclipsed the sun perfectly and Krychink's fleet fired on the awe-struck Republic ships.

The outer solar atmosphere, which extends for several solar radii from the disk of a sun, is called the corona. Most of the corona consists of great arches of hot gas, and it was discovered to be much hotter than the photosphere. The photosphere, or visible surface of a sun, has a temperature of almost 6000 K. The chromosphere, which extends for several thousand kilometers above the photosphere, has a temperature near 30,000 K. But the corona, which extends from just above the chromosphere far out into interplanetary space, has a temperature of over 1,000,000 K. In order to maintain this temperature, a direct input of energy to the corona is necessary.

Finding the mechanism by which this energy reaches the corona is one of the classic problems of astrophysics. Coruscant has been the center for many scientific ventures and gathering data from a Solar and Heliospheric Observatory space probe, found convincing evidence for a solution to this problem. Using a spectral analysis instrument to map the magnetic field of the Coruscant sun showed that regions of plasma between the sun's surface and the corona caused the magnetic field lines to break up due to the electrical characteristics of the plasma. Near the corona the magnetic energy contained in the plasma was strong enough to cause the magnetic field lines to reconnect, releasing massive amounts of radiated energy.

The magnetic field can also trap cooler material above the sun's surface, although the cooler material cannot remain stable there for more than a few days. These phenomena can be seen during an eclipse as small regions, which are called prominences, at the very edge of the sun, like jewels in a crown. Frequently they subside, but occasionally they erupt, blowing solar material into space.

The corona can only be observed during total eclipses, since the luminosity of the corona is only one-millionth that of its sun.

The ships invovled in this scrimmage recorded simulated damage by using advanced optical receivers located all over the ship. These receivers would record the light weapons fired by the enemy and simulate the damage that would have resulted from actual beam weapons.

Dwenqr's fleet had been flying directly into the sun and the optical recorders had been automatically turned down to reduce damage to the sensitive system. Now, experiencing an eclipse, where only the corona was visible at one-millionth the luminosity of the sun, the optical recorders opened themselves wide and instantly fried, overloading from the corona's radioactive intensity.

The explosions of the overloading recorders rocked the fleet like no simulated damage could ever do. These explosions corresponded directly to Krychink's firing on the fleet with his harmless light weapons. One of the X-wings lost control, as he was both blinded by the eclipse and his poorly placed optical recorder ruptured into his lateral stabilizers. The ship veered off to the side and into a Y-wing, both fighters exploding.

Dwenqr staggered under the sight of the brief eclipse and the rocking of his ship. The eclipse passed quickly as the fleet moved the through the predetermined coordinates. "What's going on?!" screamed the captain.

The optical sensors were not normal parts of the ships and were only wired into the damage sensors, thus, the officers working the main sensor controls had no way of pinpointing the added equipment as the culprit. Instead all they had was the fact that when the Imperial fleet had fired on them, they experienced real explosions. They had lost two fighters - for real!

"Sir, it appears the Imperials are using live fire!"

"That's impossible," Dwenqr screamed, but inside he was hoping it was not. He had not enjoyed winning the long-standing conflict against the Imperials. Though winning was great, he enjoyed fighting more. The fiery captain walked quickly over to his observation post and looked and the cruiser flying in formation next to him. There were several sections of the ship sparking, and he could see patches of charred durrasteel all over the ship.

"Sir," one of the lieutenants spoke up, "we lost two fighters."

"Lost meaning?"

"Sir, they are debris."

"Those sons of rancors! Return fire!"

"Live fire, sir?"

"Yes, Lieutenant, live fire. We were fired upon, and we shall return fire. Target weapon systems only."

Krychink expected a com call first, but the short tempered Republic Captain did not bother by asking what in blazes they were doing, and returned live fire. Krychink was forced into accepting a few hits before raising his real shields, not wanting the Coruscant Holocasting Company to think he had been expecting the live fire, even though he had been.

***

Back in the collection of Mickube's moons, Captain Collins was reliving an old horror. "Admiral Grestip, is that you?" he said quietly to himself as he watched the paired interceptors attack his ship. He had inhaled a large amount of prolon gas and was hallucinating badly.

Nine years ago he had faced Admiral Grestip in an almost identical situation. Grestip had been a student of Captain Thomas Thorin at the Imperial Officer's Academy and had learned his lessons well. He had crippled Collins' fleet by using the same paired dive bombing runs that Captain Paxtin was now using. Collins had emerged victorious only because his hit and hide tactics had done enough damage that when he had been forced to limp out from behind his rocks, his opponent was limping far worse.

Still, Collins had watched Admiral Grestip retreat while flames were being put out on his cruiser's bridge. He had lost over 1200 men in that battle, half a dozen ships, and none of the surviving ships had escaped without major damage. They had also had to wait for a rescue team to come and get them, for none of the ships had maintained hyperspace capability during the ordeal. Almost a hundred more had died during the wait for medical relief.

Collins was relieving that event now, imagining the fires on his bridge like they had been nine years ago. The crewmembers that had survived had stuck by their captain and many of them were present on the bridge. They were reliving the horrible memories too.

Collins scowled deeply as he watched another run by the interceptors. The automatic targeting system was unable to track the first ship, and then did not see the second one coming. The ship rocked under the simulated fire, but to Collins and his hallucinating crew, it was no longer a simulation.

"Fire!" one of the ensigns screamed, grabbing an extinguisher to put out the imaginary flames.

Several members of the crew started coughing. No one was seeing the fake fire in the same location, resulting in mass hysteria as everyone was fighting a different mirage.

"It is you, Grestip!" Collins screamed at his old nemesis, who, unknown to Collins, had died during a pirate raid three years ago. Collins walked slowly to the navigator's seat amidst the imaginary fires and smoke. "You've come back for me, have you? We'll see if you get away this time."

The navigator had left his seat, in the commotion, and Collins leaned over the controls, bringing his ship out from behind one of the smaller moons. He saw the battle raging around him and the Star Destroyers sitting outside the moons, watching everything. Collins paused at first, fighting against the hallucinations when he saw the fighters throwing around harmless light weapons.

At that moment, Captain Dwenqr came over the com. "We are receiving live fire! I repeat the Imperials are using live fire!"

Collins gasped at the announcement that was definitely not a hallucination and inhaled a large amount of the prolon gas, which was seeping more and more out of the ventilation ducts in his ship. Suddenly the peaceful scrimmage around him transformed itself into a deadly firefight with tremendous explosions and badly injured spacecraft.

"Weapons control!" Collins shouted, above the noise on his bridge.

The young lieutenant manned his station and responded. "Yes, sir!"

"Target that Destroyer, and on your father's life, take it out of the sky."

The lieutenant had not been at the battle nine years ago, but the prolon gas worked just the same, and he had seen the exploding ships around him, signifying the deaths of his friends. He complied with the direct order without question.

Captain Paxtin watched as the Calamarian Cruiser unleashed its wrath on the Star Destroyer to his immediate left. The ship had not been prepared for it and had been caught with its shields down. Explosions seared through the ship, tearing huge sections of the battle machine apart and causing it to list harmlessly in space. The rest of the Star Destroyers immediately raised their shields and watched as some of the other Republic capitol ships began to emerge from their hiding spots, hurling live fire at their mortal enemies. Though none of the other ships were experiencing nine year-old memories. They were acting under direct orders from their captain and indirect orders from prolon gas.

***

Sanson began receiving reports from her two captains at once.

"Admiral we are receiving live fire. Please advise."

Sanson, Pearson, Gencron, and Allenkar were engaged in a harmless fight around the gas giant, and had not noticed what was going on elsewhere until the reports started to come in. At least Sanson had pretended not to notice.

"Admiral," Captain Gencron said over the com, "what is going on? Our captains are reporting live fire from the Imperials."

"My captains are reporting the same. They are asking for direction."

"You mean they haven't returned fire yet?"

"They have not," Sanson replied.

"Captain Dwenqr," Gencron called, linking the com so Sanson could hear. "What is going on over there?"

"Captain, we received unprovoked, live fire from the Imperials. We lost two fighters already."

"They are saying they haven't fired," Gencron replied.

"They are lying!" Dwenqr screamed and closed his com.

"He severed the connection," Gencron explained to Sanson.

"We need to see what is going on," Allenkar spoke up.

The mock battle the four fleets had been involved in seemed suddenly unimportant. The uninjured ships quickly gathered into formation with their opponents, and sped toward the live activity. As they neared the space around Timzahn, the situation was clear. Republic fighters and capitol ships were chasing and firing upon Imperial craft with no visible retaliation from the Imperials. Dwenqr had also been able to draw the inactive Captain Yun into his fight.

"Captain Dwenqr," Gencron called into his com. "Stand down! I repeat, stand down!"

"Negative, Captain. I will not allow the Imps to take down our fighters without retaliation."

"There are no Imperials, anymore," Sanson said. "The Empire is dead. We are all members of the Rep-"

"Get her off the com, Carl!" Dwenqr screamed, calling Gencron by his first name.

"She is your - OUR - commanding officer, Captain," Gencron said as sternly as he could. "And she is ordering you to stand dow-"

"She is a lying whore and an Imperial wench. She has no right to fly alongside us, and definitely no right to assume command over me and my men. Now either defend our side, Carl, or step aside and be guilty of treason!" Dwenqr severed the connection again, blocking all further conversations.

"He has lost control," Sanson said calmly over the com to Gencron. She watched as one of her fighters took too much damage and exploded. "He has lost control and people are dying."

"He needs to be taken down," Gencron agreed. He tried to give Dwenqr and Yun one more warning, but could not get through.

Sanson assumed control of the remaining ships not under Dwenqr, Yun, Paxtin, or Collins' control, and the encircled the aggressive captains' ships. Dwenqr and Yun watched as they were teamed up on, and lashed out at anything they could, Imperial or otherwise.

"Take them down, people," Sanson said into the com. She watched another of her ships explode. "But do not risk your own life. If you feel you are in mortal danger, take them out."

"Admiral," it was Captain Paxtin this time, "we are receiving heavy fire. Please advise."

"Captain Collins," Gencron called, hoping Collins was more reasonable, "what's going on over there?"

"We are receiving heavy damage and have lost several ships."

Gencron looked at his scopes and saw that the only damaged ships in the whole system belonged to Imperials, save for the two lost Republic fighters. "Captain, the Imperials have not fired."

"They are lying!" Collins screamed back. "Admiral Grestip has taken out several of my fighters and one of my cruisers."

"Admiral Grestip?" Gencron asked.

"Captain Collins is hallucinating," Captain Allenkar said. "He battled Grestip almost ten years ago and took heavy losses. I think he thinks he is reliving that battle."

"That's insane," Gencron replied. "How-"

"I need ships to help over there," Sanson said, not wanting to get into how the captain was hallucinating. "We need to take him down as well."

"This was a bad idea, Admiral," Gencron said sadly, referring to the scrimmage.

"We can talk about that later, Captain," Sanson replied, suddenly sounding very much in charge. "We will talk about a great many things later, but right now we have to save lives. That might involve taking some, but we will do only what's necessary. Are you with me?"

"Yes, Admiral."

***

Leia and Borrel had not stayed away from the holo-projector long. Thomas had called them back emphatically when the live shots started to fly.

"What's happening?" Leia asked as she watched the ships exchanging live fire.

"All of a sudden, Captains Dwenqr and Collins started opening fire on the Imperials. To the Imps credit, they only fired back when ordered to do so by both Sanson and Captain Gencron."

The Coruscant Holocasting Company had gotten access to the com channels being used during the scrimmage and were broadcasting the conversations.

"They are lying!" Collins screamed back. "Admiral Grestip has taken out several of my fighters and one of my cruisers."

"Admiral Grestip?" Gencron asked.

"Captain Collins is hallucinating," Captain Allenkar said. "He battled Grestip almost ten years ago an-"

"Grestip . . ." both Leia and Thomas said together.

". . . is an admiral?" Thomas questioned.

". . . is dead." Leia corrected.

Thomas looked at her. "I heard a rumor through Wedge a couple years ago that he died in a pirate raid. Han was still a general at the time and he got the rumor confirmed through some of his old smuggling buddies."

"I taught him in the academy," Thomas explained. "The guy was an idiot. Of course they were all idiots, but he was an idiot's idiot. He made admiral? I'm glad I switched sides."

"You don't understand," Leia said. "After Thrawn was defeated, the Imperials had no organized leadership and anyone could claim any title they wanted. Grestip might have been an idiot, but like Captain Allenkar said, he gave Collins a hard time about ten years ago. Collins lost a lot of men in that battle and he has never really gotten over it."

Thomas snapped his fingers. "That sneaky little . . ."

"What is it?"

"Don't you see? Sanson and Snotzenexer set it all up. They used the same battle strategy Grestip had used almost ten years ago to make Collins think he was reliving the battle."

"People don't hallucinate like that, Thomas. Especially someone as professional as Collins."

"True," Thomas admitted, "but you don't really think Snotzenexer had all of that prolon gas created just so he could save that planet in the Denorid system, do you? Seems like an awful lot of trouble just to save a planet you destroyed in the first place. He only used that planet as an alibi to produce the hallucinogenic gas."

"Can you prove it?"

"You don't believe me?" Thomas asked, incredulously.

Leia motioned to the datapad she was holding containing the news report they were working on. "I need proof."

"If you do a medical examination on one of the officers within 48 hours of exposure, you should be able to get your proof."

They looked at the holo-projector as one of the Calamarian Cruiser exploded under fire from both Star Destroyers and Republic ships. "If any of them survive," Thomas added.

***

Fourteen hours after the disastrous scrimmage had ended, the remaining captains were sitting around the table. Captain Dwenqr and Captain Yun were wearing security cuffs and where each flanked by armed guards. On either side of the two prisoners sat Captains Gencron and Allenkar. Further away, at a safe distance from Captain Dwenqr, sat Captain Krychink. Admiral Sanson stood at the head of the table. Captain Paxtin was in medical care along with hundreds of other officers suffering from varying injuries. The larger portions of Captain Collins were floating somewhere near the third moon of Mickube, burnt to a crisp.

The combined forces of Sanson, Pearson, Gencron, and Allenkar had been able to subdue Dwenqr and Yun without too much trouble, but Collins had been truly crazy. After they had ionized his ship's weapons, he had put his cruiser on a collision course with Paxtin's crippled Star Destroyer. They had tried to take out the engines, but the expert design of the Calamarian ship required that you tear through the ship to get at the main reactor. The resulting explosion had further damaged Paxtin's ship, and had put him and most of his crew in emergency medical care.

None of the participants involved in the deadly battle, including the majority of the population of Coruscant, had slept that night, and every face at the table in the small room was extremely tired. CHC, the Coruscant Holocasting Company, had replayed the battle at least a dozen times during the night, trying to find a reason for the dramatic change of events.

They were able to confirm that no Imperial ship had fired a live shot until ordered to do so in retaliation to the repeated and unprovoked Republic attack. After examining Dwenqr's fleet, though it was heavily damaged during the real fight, it was found that his optical recorders had overloaded and exploded.

Captain Krychink had given a statement claiming he had wanted to use the backdrop of the eclipse as a way to blind his opponent while he attacked, but had no idea that the eclipse could do that to the optical recorders. Captain Dwenqr had refused to give a statement. All the evidence clearly pointed that he had over-reacted and had caused the deaths of dozens of men, but he still held on to some claim that the Imperials were responsible.

Captain Collins had also obviously been at fault in the massacre in the moons. Two Star Destroyers had been destroyed and several cruisers had been damaged beyond repair. People were hesitant to blame the dead captain for the atrocity, because unlike Dwenqr, Collins had an immaculate record and was revered as a Republic hero.

In the end, only Sanson and Krychink came out of the scrimmage with praise. Sanson had deferred to Captain Gencron when the call for attacking the out-of-control captains was made. If she had truly been an evil Imperial officer, like Dwenqr claimed, she would have jumped at the opportunity to legally attack Republic ships. Krychink was being hailed as a tactical genius and an Imperial with great restraint. While his move with the eclipse jump-started the chaos, the spur-of-the moment move genius, like Sanson, showed immense restraint when faced with a hostile attacker.

Though Allenkar and Gencron had done nothing wrong, they were members of the loosing side and hung their heads in shame along with Yun and Dwenqr. After all the hype by the Republic Captains, it was they who had fired the first shots and betrayed the trust. Dwenqr and Yun were being dishonorably discharged from the military and would spend several decades in prison for their actions. Gencron and Allenkar were not being charged with anything, but both agreed that it would be best if they went into early retirement and turned the fleet over to Sanson.

"We are going to have to work hard to recover from this incident," Sanson said slowly, looking at everyone at the table as she spoke. Only Dwenqr returned the look, while everyone else stared holes in the table. The portly captain still felt the female admiral was responsible for this outrage, he just could not prove it.

"Captains Gencron and Allenkar, you know that I disagree with your decisions and wish you would reconsider your resignations."

They both shook their heads. "We are as much to blame as anyone," Gencron said slowly. "We both spread anti-Imperial propaganda around our crews before the battle, and while none of us fired illegally, we didn't help the matter either."

Sanson sighed. "What we need to do is remove that word from everyone's vocabulary. There is no more Empire. There are no more Imperials. Those who would still call themselves Imperials are merely hopeless rogues on the outskirts of the unexplored regions. We are all members of the Republic.

"Maybe it is best if you step down," Sanson admitted. "People need to see that the military will no longer be divided into two clear groups. We are all members of the same military with one goal: peace. We need to promote galactic peace."

Admiral Sanson was nearly gagging on her words, but she continued. "The Republic military needs to be a sign of strength and security, ready to put down any uprising or civil war that threatens peace. If the military is fighting amongst itself, how can it be expected to handle external conflict?"

Everyone nodded except Dwenqr, who had not taken his eyes off Sanson. The admiral tried not to stare back. If she started that, she would quickly loose the cool demeanor she was trying to maintain. She would have him killed while he was in prison. That would be easy enough with the Coruscant jails filled with ex-Imperials.

The short meeting ended with many more to follow. Sanson would speak to every media organization within ten sectors. Gencron and Allenkar would officially announce their resignation, and the trial for Dwenqr and Yun would be held this afternoon. At nightfall, Captain Collins' funeral would take place. It was going to be a very busy day, and all Sanson really wanted to do was curl up in bed with her son and sleep for a week.

Chapter 15 "The Game's Afoot"

Vince looked at the huge gas giant in front of him. The swirls of color and vibrant flashes of energy that coursed through Yavin momentarily mesmerized him before a turbo laser scorched across his filed of vision. Vince shook his head, amazed at how quickly the Jedi students had gained familiarity with the V-38's controls. The experienced pilot put his ship into a nasty dive, twisting 540 degrees, inverting his ship and reversing his original trajectory. The next two shots did not come close, and Vince realized how far these students still had to come.

Vince and Bep had only been training the Jedi for a day and a half, but already the students (most of whom had never flown a fighter before) were better than most Imperial pilots the pair had fought against. The Jedi had several things in their favor. First they had the Force.

Vince had been at a loss as to how he could teach these students most effectively. He knew how to teach a novice to fly. That had been part of his responsibility back in the old days of the Republic before Snotzenexer and Sanson. The problem was that he usually spent two weeks with a new class before they ever sat in the cockpit. Vince did not have that kind of time now. He had been forced to show the young Jedi the ships, explain what never to do, and then let them experiment with it.

The initial results were disastrous. They had blown three engines and nearly crashed one fighter in the first two hours. Even after they had successfully gotten into space, Vince and Bep (the targets) barely had to do more than fly in a straight line to keep from getting hit. The Jedi had no experience flying, much less flying and shooting. Vince had altered the laser cannons on the TIE's to make sure the shots would be non-lethal if they ever hit the evasive W-wings, but that began to seem unnecessary. It was not until Mara had given her advice that they started to see some progress.

Mara had suggested they fly patterns around Yavin. Vince and Bep balked at the idea. They were seasoned pilots, the best in the fleet, and they did not feel comfortable flying through the unpredictable gravity wells that permeated around the planet. Still, Mara insisted they at least try. The results were instantaneous. The Jedi began to follow Vince and Bep's maneuvers more easily. They still had a hard time firing, but after a day of flying, that came along also.

That night, Mara had tried to explain to Vince that the gas giant produced an enormous amount of energy that stood out profoundly in a Jedi's mind. Once the Jedi opened their minds to that energy, they began to feel the energies of their ships as well. Vince did not understand most of it, but realized that Yavin was able to inspire the Jedi's powers in ways that his rudimentary teaching skills could not.

The second thing the Jedi had going for them was that their V-38's were invisible. Vince and Bep had no idea when they had a tail, or how many. The location of the ships could be discerned only when they fired, but after a few lucky hits by Vince and Bep, the Jedi learned to keep moving afterwards.

Now Vince could tell that he was being followed closely by at least three fighters, and while he had not seriously tried to loose any of them yet, he had done enough maneuvers to satisfy his concern as to the Jedi's skill. Mara had told Vince that these Jedi likely would not have to fight other fighters, and since they were equipped with turbo lasers, they would be valuable assets against the Imperial capitol ships. Vince understood that their little rag-tag rebellion did not have any capitol ships to combat Snotzenexer and friends, but other than the two W-wings, they did not have any fighters either. Vince hoped that Mara and Thomas were not counting on he and Bep to take out the entire Imperial fighter collection they would encounter. Maybe if they still had Jon . . .

Vince cleared his head of those thoughts. He had to have confidence that Mara and Thomas knew what they were doing. They would win - they had to win! - and then they would go after Jon. Vince turned his attention back to the empty space scene in front of him, trying to avoid the cross hairs of two dozen invisible ships.

The com unit in the W-wing crackled before Vince could continue. "Vince," Mara's voice came over the speaker, "wrap it up and bring them in. I just got a call from Thomas. The game's afoot."

***

Leia sat in front of the holo-com unit in the TBC headquarters on Torenick. She had a call to make, but was still trying to rationalize it. She was about to call a long time friend on Coruscant. Dr. Herren Finsch had been the doctor for her and her family back on Coruscant. The Force filled family rarely had to turn to modern medicine to cure their physical ills, but on such occasion that it became necessary, Dr. Finsch had been their doctor.

It was not whom she was calling that she needed to rationalize, it was what she was going to request of the family friend. She was going to ask him to check for prolan gas in the surviving officers that had been under Captain Collins' command during the scrimmage.

Snotzenexer had started his drug and health organization seven months ago. Prolanstina, the bacteria used to make prolan gas, took six months to reach maturity. If Snotzenexer did not have every little detail of his plan laid out, and only knew that he would want to play with the minds Republic Officers, he would have grown a wider range of hallucinogens, most far more powerful than prolan gas. Prolan gas did not produce random visions or hallucinations. The oxygenating gas heightened a person's senses and memory, making past events and present ones seem indecipherable.

The other illegal drugs Thomas had shown Leia that were more potent, were produced from vegetation that usually had a very legitimate use, giving the Republic President a valid alibi. Instead, Snotzenexer had used prolanstina, which had only one use, and not a good one.

In order to justify Snotzenexer's choice, one had to assume that he had laid out the entire plan, down to the precise outcome of the scrimmage. The fact that he had done this over seven months ago, before his wife was even a member of the Republic Navy, shocked Leia to the core.

Leia, Thomas, Mara, Han, and everyone else were just days way from a fight with the former Imperial Admiral, and Leia could not help but wonder if Snotzenexer had already laid out the location, methods, and outcome of that battle. Leia shook her head, trying to rid herself of the distressful thoughts and dialed up the frequency of Dr. Finsch.

Dr. Finsch's secretary answered the call, as expected, and said that the palace doctor was very busy tending to the injured from the scrimmage. The secretary recognized Leia, though, and said she would try to get the doctor.

Fifteen minutes later, Dr. Finsch sat down in front of the holo-com on Coruscant. He wore his traditional sky blue coat and was drying his hands on a small white towel. He had told Leia once that he washed his hands on an average of 60 times a day. "Good morning, Leia."

Dr. Finsch had been one of the few people in the Coruscant Palace staff that had always called Leia and Han by their first names. It was not morning where Leia was, and the fact that the Coruscant Palace was on a much different time schedule reminded her that when they eventually released their news bulletin, they wanted to do so when Coruscant's nervous system was asleep.

"Good morning, Herren," Leia responded. "I have an unusual favor to ask of you."

Normally the doctor would be very responsive to one of Leia's requests, but these were not normal times. "Leia, I'm very busy right now, and I shouldn't have even taken this call. I've got a lo-"

"This won't interfere with your duties with the injured officers. In fact this might answer a few questions."

Herren's ears pricked up at this and waited to here what the former president had to say. "I would like you to check for evidence of prolan gas."

If Leia had asked him to check to make sure each of his patients were not really rancors in disguise, it would have come as little more surprise. Herren's mind was immediately assailed with dozens of possibilities.

He knew what the illegal gas was, what it was capable of doing, and that Snotzenexer had been producing very large amounts of it. Leia was right, if he did find evidence of the gas in the men he was treating, it would answer a few questions, mainly: Why had someone as professional and experienced as Captain Collins loose control so easily?

While it answered the most prominent question, it also brought to the table more important questions such as why, when, and most definitely, who had put tanks of prolan gas on the Republic ships. The answers to these questions were relatively obvious, but as the doctor who had delivered Snotzenexer's son, the answers were not easily coped with.

It took a while for Herren to respond verbally. "And if I find it?" he asked weakly, referring to the gas.

"Take cover," Leia responded, totally serious.

Dr. Finsch nodded resolutely, already trying to figure out what he would do with the information once he obtained it. Checking for prolan gas was far from a standard procedure, but the test was not unknown to Herren, and he was trying to figure out which nurse he could trust to assist him.

The call ended, and Leia knew that this piece of information would not need to be included in their news release. The senate had called a special session to take place in a little over 24 hours, and Leia knew by then that every senator and their aids would know what had caused Collins to hallucinate.

Leia was about to get up from her chair, when she remembered another call she had to make. Inputting a similar frequency as before, Leia called up another friend on Coruscant, who was no doubt just as busy as Dr. Finsch.

Evlyn Cariasco was the head of the Senate Investigation Committee and her teams had been put into furious action to try and discern what had gone wrong in the scrimmage and whose fault it was. The trials for Captains Dwenqr and Yun were taking place today and her teams were responsible for over 80% of the evidence to be used. Her office was ground zero, and she had spent the last 14 hours talking on her com unit. It was a miracle, actually, that Leia had not gotten a busy signal.

"Cariasco here," Evlyn responded, answering her device before the first chime was completed. The senator saw who it was and spoke before Leia could. "I'm very busy right now Leia, and don't have the ti-"

"I'll just be a second," Leia lied. "I was just curious if you have received a report from the team you sent to Xentin to investigate the mining explosion."

Of all the things . . . Evlyn thought. She had indeed sent a team to the devastated planet at Leia's request, though the act was more out of boredom than any conviction the accident warranted a full investigation. A volcano had erupted, pure and simple. Now here was Leia bugging her about it again. "I really don't have the time." She almost cut Leia off.

"Please! Can you just check? I know you've been up all night and have thought of little else but the scrimmage. Maybe the report came in during the night."

Evlyn's finger was poised over the disconnect switch, but she sighed in defeat. "Okay, I'll check."

Leia watched as the senator's head turned away from the holo-com to look at her computer. Evlyn called up the list of messages she'd received in the last 24 hours only to find that she had received ten times as many electronic messages as through her com. Her frustration only grew more as she recognized several large news organizations that had requested interviews. If she did not respond to them through electronic messaging, they would also soon bug her on the com.

As her eyes went down the long list of messages, she did find one from her team on Xentin, a team she would shortly recall to work on much more important matters. She opened the message and quickly began to scan the document looking for key words. Equipment problems . . . drilling . . . samples . . . tests . . . radiation . . . conclusive evidence . . . sabotage . . . VIB representative. Evlyn suddenly stopped her scanning, realizing that this message actually held some important data.

Reading more closely she found that the team had taken some samples from the main disaster site and found very high levels of radiation. The explosives used by the mining corporation were standard charges and non-atomic. There was no uranium, tyustium, or any other radioactive material in area, or even common to the planet. The team felt they had conclusive evidence that an unauthorized atomic explosive had been used in a very fragile location of the mines.

Some of the non-geological investigation they did included confirming from some of the remaining records that all of the thermal pressures were actually lower than normal at the time of the explosion. They also confirmed that the sanctioned blasting that had taken place in conjunction with the accident was being performed so high up in the mine, that even if it had been an atomic blast, it could not have produce a volcanic eruption.

The team then looked into who had been on the planet at the time of the explosion. There had only been four guests that week an only one of them was not a regular and without a security pass. A man by the name of Narion Loits, a representative of the Varion Imperial Bank, had visited on short notice and been given a tour of the main mining facility only moments before the accident had taken place.

Evlyn stared blankly at the report. It did not accuse this Narion Loits of the crime, it merely pointed out that he was the only suspect. The senator turned slowly back to the holo-com unit and Leia's waiting face. Leia had seen Evlyn's face in profile as she had read the document and knew the nature of the report.

"What did it say?" Leia asked, seeing that Evlyn was still too shocked to speak.

"The team suspects sabotage," Evlyn replied, downplaying the fact that the report stated it was definitely sabotage.

"Do they have any suspects?"

"Not yet," Evlyn lied. It was not that she did not want to admit Leia was right or that Snotzenexer was wrong. She held no loyalties either way. Evlyn did not want to face reality. If Leia was right about this, what else had she been right about? Was Snotzenexer an Imperial? Had he and Sanson been involved in the Danzig system? Did Snotzenexer plan to return the government to an Imperial dictatorship?

Evlyn quickly promised to call Leia when she got more information and ended the call. The senator leaned back in her chair, overwhelmed. She was not going to keep this report a secret, but she also was not going to broadcast it until her team could get more substantial evidence. Before Evlyn could progress further down that thought line, her com chimed again. It was a reporter. Evlyn sighed, preparing for a long day.

***

Ferris Loyran, President of the Varion Construction Yards, set one of his company's nicer ships down smoothly in a public landing zone on Torenick. Sandie Hollins, Eranadis Palpatine, and Jon Poncho sat by eagerly as Ferris completed the ship's shutdown procedure.

The four had flown here in response to the latest release from TBC concerning Snotzenexer's corrupt nature. Jon had told them that Leia, Thomas, Mara, or all three had to be behind the publication. Sandie, Eran, and Ferris had agreed that no one on the outside could know so much.

Though the group knew where they had to go to join the rebellion, they were not sure they would be allowed in. If they could talk with one of Jon's friends, they would no doubt accept them with open arms, but the group would more likely run into secretaries and security guards who had no idea who they were talking about.

Thirty minutes after landing, the foursome was standing outside the main office building of the TBC. Ferris led the way into the building, followed by Sandie and then Jon. Eran, always on the lookout for enemies, pulled up in the rear.

The main lobby was bustling with activity. Aliens and humans were crowded in the large area, which did not seem so big at the moment. Ferris had a guess why they were all here and had it confirmed a moment later.

"I'm sorry sir, but if you don't have an appointment I can't announce your presence."

"But we're different," he tried to say. "We need to talk to the editors of the Galactic Inquirer."

"How are you different from the rest of these people?" the secretary asked sarcastically, motioning to the full room. "Over there is someone who claims to be from the future and knows all of the lottery numbers and the outcomes to every major sporting event. Over there is someone who claims to be from another galaxy and knows the meaning of life. Over there . . ." the secretary continued to point around the room at different eccentric guests in the lobby.

The Galactic Inquirer had been a tabloid that specialized in the bizarre and exotic. It had been out of publication for half a year after its parent company had been destroyed, but since its latest publication, despite the fact that the subject matter was far more serious than before, the freaks of the universe had seen their chance for fame rekindled.

"No," Ferris cut off the woman, feeling she could go on for quite a while, "we're not different like that. We are important people."

The secretary nodded her head. She had heard it all before.

"I'm . . ." Ferris started to say, introducing himself, but realized that Sandie was more famous. "This is Sandie Hollins," he motioned behind him, "President of the Varion Imperial Bank."

"And I'm Leia Organa-Solo," the secretary said sarcastically without missing a beat, "come to organize a new rebellion."

Ferris nearly jumped at the accurate words, hoping the secretary did not realize the truth in what she had just said. Sandie remained calm, producing her ID card. The secretary took it reluctantly and flipped it through her authenticiser. The woman sat up a little straighter in her chair when the device gave a confirming beep that the ID was authentic.

"Um, I'm sorry, President Hollins, who is it that you said you wanted to see?"

Ferris had not given a name, only that he wanted to see the editors of the Galactic Inquirer. "Cayron Moall," Sandie said, having researched who the top man in this building was. The chief producer probably would not be involved with what they wanted, but he would be able to direct them toward the people who were.

"And what exactly did you want to talk to him about?"

"The Documentary," Sandie responded.

The secretary put a call into the producer's office and waited several moments before Cayron answered. "Sir, I have Sandie Hollins and . . ." she paused and looked at Ferris. "What was your name?"

"Ferris Loyran, President of the Varion Constr-"

". . .someone named Ferris," the secretary continued into the phone. She paused listening to the other end. "I did, sir. She checks out." Pause. "I don't know." Pause. "Yes, sir." The secretary hung up and looked at Sandie. "Moall will see you."

Ferris understood that he was not invited.

"I will bring my bodyguard," Sandie said, looking back at Eran. He and Jon were busy trying to fight off a Rodian who was convinced he could fix Jon's legs if they would just let him stick a large, dirty, wooden peg in Jon's left ear.

"But I have healing powers!" the freak cried.

"You're going to need healing yourself, if you don't get that stick away from my friend," Eran said sharply.

"Eran," Sandie said sharply, "come with me."

Eran cast a dirty look at the alien and reluctantly left Jon's side. Ferris was quick to take up the defense and the Rodian decided to retreat to his seat. "I do have healing powers," he said quietly, more to bolster his own false confidence than to argue with Eran and Ferris.

Ferris and Jon moved off to a relatively empty section of the lobby and watched as Eran and Sandie walked through the yielding doors toward the turbo lift that would take them to Cayron Moall's office.

After a short ride up the building, the turbo lift opened into a short hallway that ran perpendicular. Eran and Sandie heard noise from both their left and right and had a feeling that both directions led to the same large room on the other side of the wall in front of them. They went left and shortly turned right to look into a room of utter chaos.

Men and women were pounding on keyboards, shouting at each other, shoving pastries in their face when ever they found a free hand, and generally running all over the place. The narrow walkways between the dozens of desks were often too littered to travel well, and when someone needed to distribute information, they simply yelled that person's name and hurled a data card in their general direction. The recipient barely looked up at the sound of his name and somehow picking out the spinning datacard his way. He would catch it in a practiced motion and continue working. Food was also distributed in this same projectile fashion with a remarkable success rate.

Sandie and Eran stared for a long while, hoping that the secretary had sent the turbo lift to the right floor. Neither of them knew what Cayron Moall looked like, but they hoped Sandie would be recognizable. An older man saw them from across the room and quickly made his way toward them. Halfway across the room, Cayron had to stop short as a doughnut sailed in front of his face and then took a quick step forward as a datacard zipped by behind his head.

Eran noticed that no one in the room seemed overly concerned that they had nearly taken out their boss. Eran's guess that this man was Cayron Moall was confirmed a few seconds later when he approached them. Cayron recognized Sandie easily enough, but scowled when he saw Eran, having specifically told his secretary that he did not have time to talk with this Ferris fellow.

"Thanks for seeing us on such short notice," Sandie said. She noticed Cayron's scowl towards Eran. "This is my bodyguard, Eranadis. He goes with me everywhere."

"Of course," Cayron said, the scowl disappearing from his face. The VIB head office had just been destroyed and this woman had a right to be concerned with her safety. "What is it exactly that you wish to talk to me about? As you can see we are very busy."

Cayron led the pair through the narrow pathway back to his office. Sandie began to speak but Eran cut her off. "We want to talk with her," Eran said as he pointed to the side at a glassed-off conference room that only became visible when the group moved into the middle of the main room.

Cayron was startled by the young man's interruption, and looked at Sandie for confirmation. Sandie was following Eran's finger, seeing that the observant man had picked out Leia. She was sitting at a large table in a small side room with two other men. One of the men matched Jon's description of Thomas. "Yes," Sandie said, happy that she did not have to speak with Cayron. "We would like to talk with Leia Organa-Solo."

Borrel Curtis, the TBC director who had gotten Cayron the Snotzenexer story, had told him that many more people would be coming in the next few days, but Cayron had thought that they would have been able to announce their intentions better. He shrugged his shoulders. "As you wish."

Leia looked up from her discussion with Thomas and Borrel, sensing that visitors were here to see her. Having not sensed Mara's presence, she was curious as to whom it could be. She looked at the three approaching figures, having no problem identifying Cayron, but the other two were a mystery to her.

Sandie had only gained prominence after Leia had left office and was still only recognizable within the Varion sector, which the Torenick system was part of. "It's Sandie Hollins," Borrel said, recognizing her immediately. Thomas too recognized her, for he had done a lot of research into the recent destruction of the head office of the VIB on Iom. Sandie had survived the explosion, obviously, but reports said she had disappeared from the hospital a day ago.

No one knew who Eran was.

Cayron opened the door for the two visitors and then closed it, keeping himself in the main room. He had been promised the story in its entirety and did not care for bits and pieces that would only distract him from his other duties. Cayron walked back to his office leaving the five people to their own.

"I'm Sandie Hollins and this is Eranadis Palp-" she stopped, not wanting to reveal the young man's last name just yet. "Eran, for short."

Everyone was looking at Eran with suspicion, especially Leia. The mother of three Jedi could definitely sense Eran's presence in the Force, but could not quite label him as a Force user.

No one knew where to start. Neither side knew what the other group knew or what their agenda was. Eran was the only one who was pretty sure they were on the same page.

He started from the beginning. He told the group about how he had worked for a government agency, fighting organized crime in the Varion system. Admiral Sanson had approached him and introduced him to Admiral Snotzenexer. They had hired him to steal some financial records from Coruscant.

By this time Leia had figured out who he was. She had talked with Han, and he had told her about the man who had stolen the records, killed Jacen, and brought Jaina back. Leia had talked with Jaina before she had left on her trip to get Jacen, and knew enough that Eran was innocent of any real wrong doing. The only problem was he was supposed to be dead.

Eran told them about the asteroids he had seen in the hold of the Super Star Destroyer. He spent very little time on his theft and flight from the twins. Eran avoided eye contact with Leia when he spoke of Jacen's death and Jaina's coma. His meeting with Han peeked Leia's interest because she knew Eran's supposed death scene was to come soon.

Eran did not boast in his survival, and only told how he did it. He then spoke of his investigation into Snotzenexer's dealings with Custom Shields Galactica and how the president was responsible for the destruction. Thomas had read the reports saying that an impostor had posed as Norric Harmeon and had embarrassed Snotzenexer and Sanson at the Health and Drug Administration Gala. The old Imperial Captain smiled at the idea that the impostor was before him now.

Eran spoke briefly on his assignment to be Sandie's bodyguard and of the bank's destruction, knowing that Sandie would go into those details much more completely. After he was done speaking, he stepped back from the group, hoping someone else would take up the exposition.

The group remained silent and Eran looked at the faces before him slowly. He settled on Leia. "I'm sorry," he said without really thinking.

"It's okay," she replied. "Jaina is well, and we believe Jacen is too."

"But I-" Eran stopped. He had killed Jacen, he knew that, but he also knew that the Jedi's body had disappeared immediately after the deed. There was a lot Eran did not know about Jedi. "Where is he?" Eran asked, his hands going instinctively to the inside of his jacket to his lightsabers. Would Jacen still want to fight him?

"That is a very good question," Leia responded. She did not know where Jaina had gone. Her daughter had said the trip would take her several months. It had been almost seven months since she had left and Leia hoped her children would return soon. She could use their help.

Thomas wanted to move this meeting into a more advanced stage, realizing they were all working on a time table. "I'd like to talk to you about custom Shields Galactica," he said to Eran, "and to you about the VIB," he turned to Sandie.

"We have two more associates with us down stairs," Sandie said, almost forgetting about Ferris and Jon. "The president of the VCY and a young man who says he used to be part of your group before his fighter went down on Iom, Jon Poncho."

Leia was ecstatic that the young man was still alive. He would be a major bonus once the fight reached space. Thomas was similarly excited hearing that the VCY president was on their side. He knew about the Star Destroyers docked at the construction facility in the Varion system, and had secretly fantasized about obtaining them. Those ideas no longer seemed like fantasies. The game was definitely afoot.

Chapter 16 "Trade Off"

Snotzenexer walked down the hallway, deep in thought. His wife was busy with the authorities. It was a funny idea to Snotzenexer. After all, he and his wife were the authorities. At times of crises like this the senate had an amazing ability of producing dozens of people to take charge of the situation. They were questioning her on everything at least a dozen times. The CHC, Coruscant Holocasting Company, had done nothing but show and reshow the scrimmage. The fight had lasted only a little more than an hour, but since there had been three distinct section to the fight and the CHC had several dozen cameras located all over the system, they had a good seven hours of worthwhile footage.

The "authorities" were forcing Sanson to go over every second of the footage, explaining what had happened. Snotzenexer felt very confident in his wife's ability to handle the questions and in her stamina to last through them. He had much less confidence in Captains Dwenqr and Yun, the two men who were being blamed for the catastrophe along with their dead associate, Captain Collins.

Sanson was seen as the hero, and her interviews were likely being done with dimmed lights and calm voices. Dwenqr and Yun were more likely enduring hot lights and very uptight interrogators. Snotzenexer did not hold too much faith in Captain Paxtin or Captain Pearson, his underlings. Fortunately, Pearson had been kept away from the main action, something that had not happened by chance, and Paxtin was still undergoing medical treatment and would not be ready for interrogation until long after the issue was decided. Captain Krychink, the remaining Imperial had a good head on his shoulders and would be fine. While he had been involved in much more than Pearson had, he was as innocent as could be and would get the same hero treatment as Sanson.

Captain Yun was weak and would blame everything on Dwenqr, saying he only joined in the fight against the Imperials when the more seasoned captain had insisted. Dwenqr would stupidly deny that he was ever in the wrong, despite the hours of footage from a dozen angles that the interrogators would show him proving the captain to be at fault. In reality if the man just admitted that he had acted in haste, letting his deeply rooted hatred for the Empire get the best of him, they would be easier on him. If he admitted, he'd probably escape with an exile. As it stood, Snotzenexer was sure he'd get no less than life in prison.

Captains Allenkar and Gencron were also innocent, but they had already announced their intentions to resign, and Snotzenexer assumed that the authorities would have requested it anyway. It had been Snotzenexer's idea to originally label Admiral Antilles and Captain Tremon as traitors when they had turned on his men, and now everyone else was finally coming around, seeing that Snotzenexer had been right and they needed a complete changing of the guard.

Snotzenexer smiled as he reached the end of the hall, everything would be just fine. The president pressed the chime next to the door at the end of the hall, and it promptly opened. Snotzenexer did not like Cog Fardin. It was not that the Twi'lek was doing a bad job at handling the Trade Federation, far from it. Snotzenexer just did not like him. He kind of wished Mara had taken the job when he had offered it to her.

Cog sat behind his desk a little straighter as Snotzenexer walked in. "Yes, sir." The Twi'lek was going to try extra hard to not ramble like he normally did when talking to Snotzenexer.

"I need you to set up a trade embargo," Snotzenexer said bluntly without so much as a greeting.

"No problem. Which planet?"

"Torenick," Snotzenexer replied. He knew who had been responsible for the news release about the PEN explosion and the asteroids. He also knew a lot about the TBC. When he had blown up the PEN building, the TBC had become huge. Snotzenexer had become familiar with the planet's Prime Minister, and still occasionally called the man. Snotzenexer had also just talked with the planet's senator, for they were a member world. The kid (the senator could not have been older than 25) was the Prime Minister's son and was a weakling if Snotzenexer had ever met one.

When Torenick found out about the embargo, the proper thing would be to bring it up in front of the senate, and then Snotzenexer would be in big trouble. Torenick's senator would wet his pants if he ever tried to address the senate. Snotzenexer even got nervous in the huge senate chamber. Snotzenexer had just minutes before told the young man that if anything ever troubled him, the senator should come to his office, and Snotzenexer would take car of it. The man seemed very relieved, for while he was extremely timid, he was also quite bright and recognized that the TBC reports might turn into something requiring action of him.

When the kid's dad called him up to put an end to this embargo, the young senator would march straight to the president's office to get an answer. Snotzenexer would say that he had not intended to place the entire world under an embargo, but had set it up against the TBC buildings. He would play stupid and say that the system must not allow such specific targeting.

The kid would know that the president should not have that kind of power and would request the embargo be lifted. By that time Snotzenexer expected another release from the Galactic Inquirer. He did not think it would accuse him of anything too drastic yet, and nothing he would not be able to refute.

Snotzenexer would point out that the reports coming out of the TBC were very detrimental to the Republic as a whole and were totally unfounded. Snotzenexer would see what he could do about the embargo if the kid's father could see his way to ending the offending publications. The young senator would recognize the threat for what it was: Stop the TBC or the embargo stays.

Snotzenexer smiled at the decision the kid would be faced with. He could face the senate, or he could tell his father to shut down the TBC. The latter would be far easier on the young man and Snotzenexer knew that would be the end of the rebel fed publications. He could even get TBC to submit a later report that stated all of their earlier reports were fabrications. After all, they were in the process of showing a documentary recounting all of Snotzenexer's exploits. It was a broadcast that the president never missed.

Cog Fardin screwed up his face. He had never heard of Torenick before and had hoped that Snotzenexer's first move like this would come against a well-known planet. Cog liked action.

Snotzenexer saw his expression and misread it. "Is there a problem with that?"

"No, no problem," Cog said slowly and with his mind elsewhere he forgot to control his comments. "You see the system is set up beautifully. Every planet has a code, and all we have to do is prompt the system to cancel all shipments to th-"

"I'll need ships too," Snotzenexer cut him off.

Cog nearly slapped himself. "How many?"

"Half a dozen ships should be enough to block all incoming traffic."

Cog really wanted to hold his next comments back, but he thought that the president was without vital information. "I can get the ships, sir, but they won't be needed. You see, the Trade Federation controls all of the trade, period. If I remove Torenick from the schedule, there is no other shipping organization that cou-"

"Six ships. I want six ships around that planet in less than 48 hours." Snotzenexer left the office abruptly.

Cog wondered if he had just been fired. On the off chance that he still had his job, he jumped up from behind his desk and left out the rear exit of his office. There his personal transport was waiting, and he raced to the Trade Federation computer center. The computer center, where Ghent spent all his time, was actually in the same building as Cog's office, but was over two kilometers away and Cog could get there quicker by taking the external route.

Ninety seconds later Cog was rushing through one of the private entrances to the computer center. Ghent was busy checking some of his other moneymakers and nearly fell out of his chair when his Twi'lek boss burst into the room.

"Quintil," Cog nearly yelled, calling Ghent by his alias. "I need you to set up an embargo for me right now."

Ghent got up from his chair quickly and led the flustered administrator over to the main computer. "On what business do you want to place the embargo?" Ghent asked calmly.

If Snotzenexer knew that each and every business that had ever purchased something through the Trade Federation had a code, and thus each of them could be singled out for an embargo, he still would not have changed his plan. He needed to get the attention of the Prime Minister as fast as he could, and this was the best way.

"Not a business, a planet: Torenick."

Ghent did a very unintentional double take. He knew nothing about the TBC. He did know where Leia and Thomas were, though, and Torenick was it. This order had obviously come from Snotzenexer. "Not a problem."

Cog was too agitated to notice Ghent's reaction to the planet's name. He watched as Ghent entered the first few letters of the planet and the computer jumped down the alphabetical listing of each world with a company that had done business with the Trade Federation. Ghent had to enter six letters before the computer singled out Torenick.

Ghent quickly placed a flag on the planet. He then opened up the flag to define its use. Flags were the easiest way to alter a company's relationship with the Trade Federation. You could put a flag on a business to increase or decrease all quotes by a certain percentage. You could use a flag to give a warning when a business had ordered an excess amount of a certain cargo. Ghent used this flag to deny all shipment requests to any company that fell under the Torenick planetary code.

"Now when the companies on this planet," Ghent explained, "and there are over 150 that deal with the Trade Federation, start seeing that all their requests are being denied, they are going to call their local Trade Federation office on Vario, and demand what's going on."

"What will happen then?" Cog asked.

"After the people on Vario get enough calls from the same planet, they will run a check on Torenick and see this flag to deny all shipments. They will then relay this information to the companies back on Torenick, forcing them to either go to their government to get the embargo removed, or they will have to buy from a Torenick based source that takes advantage of a local shipping agency."

Ghent looked up at Cog. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me what this embargo is for."

Cog shook his head. He did not even know. His business at the computer center was done, now he had to get those six siege ships to Torenick. The Federation owned battle ships were spread out all over the galaxy and were normally used to respond to pirate attacks. Cog did not need Ghent's help to organize the siege ships, and left.

Ghent watched the Twi'lek go, wondering how long he should wait before he gave Thomas a call.

***

Snotzenexer walked away from Cog's office shaking his head. When all of this settled down in a few weeks and the rebels were removed, he would be able to find himself a new Trade Federation Administrator, a human.

Glancing at his wrist chrono, Snotzenexer saw that Sanson should be breaking for breakfast soon. Though the sessions had lasted all night, and would last all day until the trials in the evening, they did break for meals. Snotzenexer forwarded a message to his kitchen droid to have Sanson's favorite breakfast meal prepared.

Ten minutes later, husband and wife were seated at the table. Sanson looked exhausted. Snotzenexer truly wished there was something he could do to share the burden, but he knew he would be overstepping his bounds if he tried to grant Sanson a reprieve in the torturous schedule. People would see him confusing family with government proceedings, and he'd be reprimanded.

Snotzenexer tried to laugh about that, considering all the other things he was doing without receiving so much as a slap on the wrist. He tried to laugh, but his wife's condition prevented him. The nurse brought David in to see his parents, and Sanson's mood brightened significantly. Though she was too tired to feed him, she did hold him and bounce him on her knee a few times.

The nurse placed him in his chair and left the family to their meal. The baby seemed very content to watch his parents eat. He did this most mornings, his eyes darting back and forth between his parents as they talked, as if trying to familiarize himself with their faces and voices.

Snotzenexer noticed this strange action as well as many others his son did. The baby rarely cried. The few times he did was when he needed to be changed, or when someone did not get him out of his crib the minute he woke up, as if he was scared he might miss something.

David surprised his father in other ways too. As soon as he had been old enough to grasp things with his hands, he had been fascinated with a simple rattle. He would shake the thing nonstop for hours. Then once he had dropped it on the floor, and the much-abused plastic had broken, spilling small beads all over the floor. The baby had not cried, but merely looked down at the broken toy and littered beads.

Snotzenexer had thrown a fit that he had been given a toy of such poor quality and got a replacement for his son within the hour. David no longer seemed interested in the rattle, though. He shook the new toy a couple times, convincing himself that it was the same thing as before and then put it down, as if to say, "Okay, I know how this works now. Give me something else."

Snotzenexer sat at the breakfast table, waiting for his wife to regain some of her strength from the meal in front of her as he looked at his son. David returned the look, staring into his father's eyes. Snotzenexer could see intelligence in the hazel eyes of his son, and it looked as if the kid would burst into speech at any moment. Regardless of how smart David was, he did not have the tongue coordination to talk yet, to say nothing about the necessary teeth.

"How are things going?" Sanson asked suddenly, interrupting Snotzenexer's staring contest with their son. The question sounded odd coming from his wife. He should be asking that question of her. Sanson seemed to realize this and answered her own question. "The sessions haven't been hard, just long and tedious. My patience has been tried more than my stamina."

"I've been trying to clean a few things up and see what our friends are up to," Snotzenexer said. They had affectionately coined the rebels as their "friends." "I figure they will release a few more reports telling the galaxy how corrupt we are, waiting for us to turn this government into the old Empire. I can't yet figure what they plan to do then. They have no ships. I've made sure all of our shipyards are carefully guarded and ready for an attack. The only ships available to them are in the Varion system."

"Taken care of," Sanson interjected. "I sent a Star Destroyer and some troop carriers to get them. They should arrive at President Loyran's doorstep in about 36 hours. If he tries to tell me they're not ready, the ships will wait, weapons ready, until they are. I don't foresee them having to wait more than 12 hours. Loyran seems like a pushover to me."

Snotzenexer did not think so, but he had never met the man while his wife had. "I set up a trade embargo on Torenick, which should shut up those stupid reports in another day or two. I've taken care of the Torenick senator too, so he won't make a stink to the senate. Which reminds me, will you be able to appear before the senate tomorrow?"

"What for?"

"They've called a special session to discuss the reconfiguration of the military. They aren't too pleased with what happened yesterday. I think it would be best if you showed up to tell them how things are going to be."

Sanson nodded slowly, finishing her meal. "If they let me sleep tonight, I should be fine for the senate tomorrow."

Snotzenexer nodded. He looked at his son and saw that he too was nodding with a smile on his face as if he had understood everything that had just been said and approved. Snotzenexer rubbed his son's head and left the table.

***

Thomas Thorn had been one of the best students in his class at the Imperial Academy. His math and theoretical science scores had been way above those of his peers. When it had came to history and battle strategy, no one could touch him. He had easily been the best hope for future glory in his class. He had not, however, had the highest cumulative grade in his graduating class. He could not write or spell worth bantha droppings.

Thomas was sitting next to an editor less than half his age, trying to retain his sanity. "Okay," the young man said, "what are you trying to say here?"

Thomas' head had been in his hands, and he looked up now. "Say what where?"

"Here." The editor read what Thomas had written.

It sounded fine to Thomas, but the kid said something about a misplaced modifier or a dangling participle or one of a dozen other grammatical errors that were littered throughout the document. "Just make it right," Thomas said, not knowing how much more he could take.

"Uh, sir," an even younger clerk tapped the older man on the shoulder. Thomas looked up again. "There is a call for you?"

Thomas thought anything was better than this torture session and did not bother asking whom it was. He followed the clerk through the tangled mess of desks and chairs in the main pressroom and found a small, quiet office with a com unit. Thomas sat down in front of the unit and waited for the kid to leave. "This is Thomas," he said.

"Ghent here," the other end of the connection replied. "We've got a problem. Half an hour ago I just put the entire planet of Torenick under trade sanctions. All traffic in transit should arrive within two days, after which the planet won't see anymore shipments."

"The entire planet?!" Thomas had not expected that. A sanction against the TBC would even have been severe. Thomas had not expected any action out of the Republic President until they had released more incriminating evidence. If the senate ever found out about this . . . "I assume this came from Snotzenexer."

"I got the information second hand through the Trade Federation Administrator."

Thomas was silent for a while. He had given Ghent the list of pilots Han had supplied, and Thomas had planned on collecting those traders by having Ghent give all of them Torenick assignments. At this early time, however, it was likely that all the pilots were spread far apart. Thomas had planned on spending a week having Ghent orchestrate the ships closer to Torenick so they would be the logical choices for the numerous fake requests Ghent would submit for Torenick. 

"We have another problem too," Ghent continued. "From the ship reports in the last fifteen minutes, it looks like six of the Trade Federation's siege ships have been taken off patrol and are heading to Torenick."

"There is a small ship repair facility on Torenick's moon," Thomas was thinking fast, "has it done business with the Trade Federation?"

Ghent punched up the information on his console. "Yes it has."

"Is it affected by the trade sanction?"

"Not anymore," Ghent said after a short pause and a flurry of keyboard activity.

"Okay, we need to get every single trader on our list to that repair facility, as soon as possible." This could still work. If Ghent could fake expedited shipments, it might not alarm the Trade Reps that their traders were being dragged halfway across the galaxy for a delivery to a simple moon based repa-

The door to the small office opened suddenly and Thomas turned around, caught in mid thought. Mara Jade walked in the room and paused at Thomas' concerned features. She had just landed on Torenick, bringing with her the crew from Yavin IV. Still in orbit were two carriers loaded down with the V-38's and two dozen anxious Jedi pilots. "What's wrong?"

"Snotzenexer is jumping the gun," Thomas replied. "He's shutting down this entire planet. We won't be able to get our group here fast enough."

Mara knew about their plan to incorporate the help of Federation traders. She pointed toward the com unit with a questioning look.

"Ghent's on the other line," Thomas answered the unspoken question.

"What kind of cargo do you guys need?" Ghent asked. "It will look very strange if these ships make the trip to Torenick empty. Their Trade Federation Reps will see right through it."

"We need everything," Thomas replied, wanting to take full advantage of the hundred or so free shipments that would come with the pilots and ships. He went on to rattle off every imaginable supply from med packs to power couplings. Thomas asked for food, power cells, clothes, droids, com units, and several dozen other common supplies.

"This will look awful suspicious, considering it's all going to a pretty small repair facility," Ghent pointed out.

"The individual Trade Federation Reps won't see all the shipments, just theirs," Thomas said. "I do suggest you go into hiding once these shipments start arriving. I'm sure your boss will be annoyed to find out that a certain repair station just outside his trade sanction is refusing payment on over 100 shipments."

Ghent was busy scrolling through the list of pilots he needed to send to Torenick. "You know," he said aloud, "some of these guys are several days away. I've got one ship here that is more than a week and a half away from you."

Mara stepped in front of Thomas. "Ghent, this is Mara."

"Long time n-"

"Zip it," she cut the slicer off. "I might be able to get you expedited hyperspace routes that could shorten most of the ships' travel time by at least half."

"Mara," Ghent said back, "the Trade Federation has its pilots using pretty risky routes as it is. I don't see how you could cut any time off them. Unless the 'Mighty Anakin' has more gifts than just program writing."

As if on cue, the young Jedi walked into the small office, followed by Ra'tok, Vince, and Bep. Though Ghent's final comment had been made sarcastically, that was exactly what Mara had in mind. "Anakin just walked in, Ghent," Mara spoke up. "Do you have access to standard routes each of these ships?"

"You are serious," Ghent replied flatly. Unseen to Mara, Ghent shrugged his shoulders. "Sure, just plug the Jedi miracle worker in and we'll get moving on it."

Mara took Anakin's arm, explaining what she needed him to do as she led him to the com unit. Thomas took this reprieve to talk with the new guests. "Vince, Bep," he said to the two pilots, "there is someone here you guys should meet."

The two friends looked at each other with puzzled faces, wondering whom it could be. Thomas led them on a short trip through the confusing network of desks and offices until they made it to the main war room. Vince and Bep saw Jon through the windows before Thomas had a chance to open the door. Though they could see their friend was sitting down, only after they burst into the room did they see he was sitting in a repulsar chair. Instead of a joyous reunion, Vince and Bep fired questions at their lame friend.

"What happened?"

"Where have you been?"

"I should ask the same question of you guys," Jon responded. "I was lying in a hospital bed for two months and was then wheeling myself around the lower levels of Iom. Not once did you guys show up for a rescue. What's wrong? You didn't really think a squadron of TIE's and a Star Destroyer could take me out by themselves, did you?"

Vince and Bep did not know if their friend was really mad at them or just playing. Jon kept the stern face up for a while longer, until his excitement at seeing his companions burst through. Thomas let the 185th get caught up, and turned to the other members of the room. Leia, Sandie, Eran, and Ferris were sitting around the large table.

Thomas looked at Ferris. "We need ships right away. You have eight Star Destroyers at your docks, right?"

Ferris nodded.

"What will it take to get them space worthy?"

"They can fly right now," Ferris said. "I've had my chief engineer make up stories to Sanson to keep them at my facility, but they are really fine. The only thing I need to fly them are the bridge codes."

"Bridge codes?" Leia asked.

Thomas had been an Imperial Captain. "Every Imperial capitol ship has a set of bridge codes to prevent theft," Thomas explained. "The codes can be used to enable, or disable the main bridge controls. I assume the bridge is now disabled. The ships can not use their weapons and can not enter hyperspace."

"Then they're worthless," Leia said.

"I don't think so," Thomas disagreed. "I have reason to believe Sanson will swing by any day now to pick those ships up. It seems Snotzenexer has turned up the timetable. Sanson will most likely send one of her lackeys to pick up the ships. They will need to bring the bridge codes with them."

"You want to steal the ships while the Imperials are there watching?" Ferris asked incredulously. "I can hire enough people to man the ships for you, but they won't be able to fight off armed and trained Imperials."

Thomas smiled. "I've got a plan."

Chapter 17 "Speedy Deliveries"

Cal Fotch opened his eyes. He was lying in his bed, unsure why he had awoken so suddenly. Being the Trade Federation Representative for Derran Speedsting had taught him to be alert, and he was slowly beginning to develop a sixth sense when something was amiss.

The rep's ears were alert to anything that could clue him into what was wrong while his eyes roamed the cabin. He looked through a small window out into space and saw the stars twinkling away as peaceful as ever. They were supposed to be in hyperspace for at least another six hours.

Cal was just buttoning his shirt as he stormed into the cockpit. Derran had expected the intrusion, and his rep's increasing alertness had begun to impress the long time pilot. "What's going on? Why have we dropped out of hyperspace?"

"Easy, Cal," Derran responded. "We are being redirected on an expedite."

"What?! But we are carrying important security equipment for the Castum Officer Training Academy. If we aren't going to deliver this to them, who will?"

"That's not my problem anymore," Derran said happily, glad this was flustering his rep just as much as he thought it would. The pilot downloaded the request to a data pad and handed the document to Cal.

The rep snatched the pad from Derran and quickly read through the summons. It said in no uncertain terms that Derran was to cease his route to Castum and head to Torenick with his current shipment along given coordinates. It mentioned briefly at the end that another trader would handle their scheduled route.

Cal checked the authorization codes and saw that everything was official. "This is very irregular," he said finally, tossing the pad into the copilot's chair next to Derran.

"Then complain to someone other than me," Derran said, having finished the course change. He slowly eased his ship back into hyperspace along the new coordinates. The seasoned pilot was a little hesitant about doing so, seeing that the coordinates he had been given brought him dangerously close to a bi-solar system that was famous for misguiding ships in hyperspace.

The fact that this was an expedite did nothing to make up his mind to follow the given coordinates. It was the fact that the time stamp on the summons was exactly two and a half minutes off standard galactic time that had finally swayed him. The time discrepancy had been Han and Derran's idea. It was the stamp that declared the summons to have come from their people.

Cal watched the stars revert to lines with Derran's last words ringing in his ears. "I think I will," he said and stormed off back to his room.

***

Han woke as Luke stirred him. It was night on the planet of Desrine, and Han had had a little too much to drink that evening. "What is it?"

"We have to leave now," Luke said quietly. "Thomas wants us on Torenick."

"But I have a pickup in the morning. The boys in the Trade Federation will know something is up if I don't make it."

"It's okay," Luke said, trying to pull his brother-in-law out of bed. "They've taken care of all that. We have a summons to go to Torenick, canceling our other shipment."

Han was slowly coming out of his hungover state. "The two and a half minute time differential?"

Luke nodded.

Han slung his legs over the edge of his bed and got up too quickly. He fell back to his bed. Han woke up twenty minutes later laying in one of the bunks on the Falcon. He got up more cautiously this time and stumbled his way down the corridors to the cockpit.

Luke was flying the Falcon with Chewie in the copilot's seat. "Where are we going?"

They were still within Desrine's atmosphere traveling east. Han was squinting into the fastest sunrise he had ever seen as the Falcon's speed made the natural occurrence appear in fast forward.

"We are picking up medical supplies from the other side of the planet," Luke responded. "You are going to have to sign your name in less than an hour, so I suggest you take a shower and try to reacquaint yourself with the land of the sober."

Han smirked at Luke's back. He would be fine. He turned sharply to walk back to his cabin. He would take that shower and would be more than ready to make the pickup. Han took a step forward and fell flat on his face.

Chewie barked a laugh at the sight of his friend lying on the floor. Luke blew a long sigh into his eyebrows. "Take over, Chewie. I'm going to get sleeping beauty back to his bed before he drowns in his own blood."

Han had smashed his own nose when he fell and there was a small red stain on the floor when Luke heaved his brother's limp form erect. After placing Han back in his bed for the second time in half an hour, he used the Force to ensure the next time Han came to, he would remain that way.

Luke left the small room and went over to the Falcon's communications unit. Luke had put a call in to Thomas shortly after he had received the summons to make sure he and Han did everything that was expected of them by both sides. Thomas had said it might not be a bad idea for Luke to call his contact in the Trade Federation to let them know about this unusual expedite.

Luke had argued that tipping off Snotzenexer as to their plan did not seem wise, but Thomas said that Snotzenexer would not hear about this for a long while. It would take at least a day for everyone at the Federation headquarters to realize what was going on, especially since Cog Fardin had laid them all off a week ago in favor of Ghent's automated system. By the time Snotzenexer figured out what was going on, it would be too late for him to do anything about it.

Thomas had also said that most of the Trade Federation Reps on the other ships they were summoning to Torenick would probably alert their contacts about what was happening, and might look odd if Luke did not. Luke dialed up his contact's frequency and went through the tedious confirmation sequence. It had been several days since the Jedi Master had talked to Cactun Gell and Luke had an odd feeling about the man. He refused to use a visual transmission, and he had an eerie quality to his voice as if it were being altered. Now Luke waited patiently for Cactun to pick up his line.

***

Snotzenexer saw the light blinking on his com unit. He had just finished an early dinner alone. Sanson was still tied up with the trial and would be until late in the night. Snotzenexer was in no mood to answer the call, but saw that it was Delan Fowlry, Han Solo's TFR. She was not due to call in for a couple more days, so something must be up.

Snotzenexer keyed in the acceptance to the call. Delan was not transmitting visual this time, but her voice came across clearly. "Cactun Gell? This is Delan Fowlry."

"Good day Ms. Fowlry, how's Solo treating you?" Snotzenexer had hoped the attractive Frolian female might try to get involved with Solo, but from his conversations with Delan, that had not happened.

"Solo is fine, sir. That is not why I've called."

Snotzenexer's ears picked up.

"We received a very unusual summons in the middle of the night. We were scheduled for a normal pickup in the morning, but that shipment was canceled and replaced with this one."

Snotzenexer sighed. He did not want to deal with this. He was not really a Trade Federation Contact, and Delan was the only rep that reported to him. He had hoped this call would be about something the rebels might be doing. Instead it looked like just an expedite. Still, Snotzenexer had to play his part so when the rebels did do something, Delan would call him.

"What is so unusual about it? Expedites are very common."

"It is unusual that we were chosen for this shipment. There must be closer ships than us. Besides, the shipment itself is odd. What would a ship repair facility need with a hospital month's worth of medical supplies?"

"Where is this repair facility?"

"The Torenick moon."

It was all Snotzenexer could do not to scream. Had he not just put a sanction on that planet? Delan did say they were headed to the moon. Maybe Snotzenexer had not been specific enough.

"That is odd," Snotzenexer responded, trying desperately to keep the concern out of his voice. "I will check it out and get back to you if it is anything that you need to worry about."

"Thank-you, sir." Delan signed off.

Snotzenexer got up from his desk and walked quickly out of his office. "A hospital month's worth of medical supplies," he muttered to himself, repeating what Delan had told him. "Maybe if they were preparing for a war." Snotzenexer doubled his pace.

Ten minutes later he was standing in front of Cog Fardin's door for the second time that day. When the door slid open, Snotzenexer knew something was seriously wrong. Cog looked like he was expecting a severe flogging, a punishment not uncommon on Ryloth, the Twi'lek home world.

"What's wrong," Snotzenexer said coldly.

"Sir," Cog's speech was so hurried it was barely understandable, "I can explain everything. You see, the Torenick moon is not actually part of the planet and I had no idea that the few businesses it contains fall outside of the planetary code. In fact, there isn't even a code for the moon. I can set one up right now and put the sanction over it as soo-"

The Twi'lek continued to talk as Snotzenexer contemplated the information. There was obviously more expedites headed toward the moon than just Solo's. "How many shipments are head to the moon?" Snotzenexer asked slowly.

Cog obviously did not want to answer that question. "One hundred thirty-six. I can fix this though. I can override their expedites with a ne-"

Cog continued talking as Snotzenexer casually reached his hand up to his shoulder com button. "Security," he said into the device, "report to my position at once."

"-can have all those pilots put on probation and the moon guarded by siege ships and then-"

"Where did the summons come from?" Snotzenexer asked, doubting that the moon could have ordered 136 shipments by itself.

"They appear to have come from the moon, though that can't be right, can it. It had to have been done from the inside, but the only person who could have done that was Quintill, and I can't find him." Cog was talking more to himself than anyone else now. "If he did this, he must have access codes he didn't tell me about. All I need to do is break those codes and get in the system to fix what he did. But I don't understand the system like he does. It might take me weeks just to figure out what he did. But I can do it, I know I can. I'll just hire-"

Two guards walked in behind Snotzenexer. "Kill him," Snotzenexer said unemotionally.

Cog somehow picked up the two terminal words amidst his constant stream of blabbering. "No," he said at the guards who were drawing their weapons. They had received an order from their admiral and this flustered Twi'lek wasn't going to slow them in the slightest. "I can fix it. I really can. Please! President Sno-"

Two shots skimmed over the tall desk and flipped Cog backward out of his chair. Neither of the skilled guards needed to check to see if their aim had been true, and they both holstered their weapons, remaining behind their leader.

Snotzenexer had heard a little of what the Twi'lek had said before his guards had fired. If this had been done from the inside, then the rebels were too deeply rooted into his Trade Federation to fix it in the short time he had before things began to happen. The idea of tearing down the Federation, an organization that had taken over six months to reach maturity, did not seem a pleasurable proposal to Snotzenexer.

After the special senate hearing tomorrow, Snotzenexer would have his wife send plenty of firepower to remove any threat the collection of ships at the Torenick moon might cause. Right now, there was little Snotzenexer could do. The rebels had won this hand, but Snotzenexer knew there would be several more. He turned to leave the room, and the guards followed without comment.

***

Ferris Loyran and Lando Calrissian stepped away from the VCY President's personal ship and approached the small building that housed the offices for Mij's Ship Repair. The small, but clean, repair facility located on Torenick's only moon was impressive for its size. Lando had been to many such facilities in the old days and was a good judge of them.

Ferris led the way into the building and spoke briefly with the receptionist. The two men did not think they would need an appointment to see the owner of the facility, and they had been right. The fact that Ferris told the young lady behind the front desk who he was did not hurt them either. Less than 60 seconds later, both men were sitting in Mij's office.

Lando had decided to come with Mara to Torenick when she had left the Academy, thinking his old friends were going to need a little help. After seeing how well organized Thomas was with so little to work with, Lando decided he would probably do more watching and admiring than actual helping. This was the case now.

Mij Tallentry was an overweight man several years older than either of his two guests. Lando guessed he was near to retirement, and that could only help in their efforts.

"Good Morning Mij," Ferris started, having no fear in calling the man by his first name. If he posted his name in flashing lights in front of his business, that was probably how he wanted to be called. "I am Ferris Loyran President of the Varion Construction Yards."

It was obvious that Mij was trying to act unimpressed, though he was far from it. "Yes, my secretary told me as much. What can I do for you two gentleman?"

Lando did not mind being neglected. He was there to watch, really. Ferris had asked him to go along because of his knowledge with small businesses like this one, but Lando had told him everything he needed to know before they got there. Ferris was rich enough that money no longer concerned him and he ran his business to perfection out of pride. Lando told him that for men like Mij credits still reigned supreme.

"I have a business proposal for you," Ferris said. "I would like to purchase your facility."

Mij was doing a poor job of hiding his awe at the prestige of his unannounced guest to begin with, and now he looked ridiculous as he tried to hide his shock. "You wish to what?"

"I would like to buy this entire facility. Name your price."

At the mention of "price" Mij quickly gathered his wits about him. "Ten million," he said.

Lando was sitting next to Ferris across the desk from Mij. The old gambler casually tapped the back leg of Ferris' chair three times, telling the president that the price was easily three times what the repair shop was worth.

"Twenty million," Ferris countered, "and I get to keep all the personnel and equipment and you leave within the hour."

Well before an hour was up, Mij Tallentry was in his ship flying back to Torenick with a story to tell his grandchildren and a bank account to keep them from working for the rest of their lives. Ferris and Lando watched the former owner's ship leave from the main lobby.

"Well," the receptionist really did not know what to say, "what happens next?"

"We are going to be receiving quite a few guests before the day is out," Ferris replied. "How many ships can this place facilitate at once?"

"About two dozen," the woman said.

Ferris rolled his eyes. "I would like you to call up the construction company that does all your building work and its two closest competitors. Offer them twice their usual fees if they can greatly expand your hangar space by the end of the day."

Ferris knew that his own crew back in the Varion system could quadruple the size of this facility within six hours. He just hoped the local construction business on Torenick were up to the task also.

Lando was outside directing the landing and unloading of the two carriers that had come from Yavin IV. He was also trying to explain to all of the techs working around the place that their current jobs, no matter how important would have to be put aside for now. Aside from Thomas and Leia, who had stayed back with Borrel to put the finishing touches on the news release they were preparing, the entire rebel team was assembling on the moon.

The first Trade Federation ship to arrive at Mij's Ship Repair was a Nubian chill freighter. Lando recognized the ship as Derran Speedsting's almost immediately. Han had told him that their old associate was part of this rebellion but it took Derran's ship landing on Torenick's moon before Lando would believe it.

Cal Fotch was the first person out of the ship and Lando intercepted him quickly. "Are you the owner of this place?" Cal asked impatiently as if he had been made to wait for hours.

"I work for him, yes," Lando responded, recognizing this man as Derran's rep. "May I see the cargo?"

"What do you need security equipment for on a barren moon like this anyway?"

Lando looked around at the landscape. The moon had no atmosphere and greatly reminded him of his asteroid mining facility. The huge oxygen shield that surround the small business was even now being expanded by the three construction companies that had arrived and were hard at work. Those not working on the oxygen shield were busy making sure this place had more hangars than a clothing store.

"You'd be surprised," Lando said. "The cargo please." He gestured to the back of the ship.

Cal grunted in frustration at his inability to get a straight answer from anyone. He had called his Federation contact but he did not know what was going on either. Cal led Lando around to the back of the ship and opened the outer cargo hatch. Lando walked up the ramp before it was fully lowered and began rooting through the shipment. Lando spotted a particular crate and went over to open it.

"Excuse me, sir," Cal said sternly. "It against Federation protocol to examine a shipment before it has been unloaded. Technically this equipment still belongs to the Federation, and as its representative, I demand payment in full before you handle the merchandise."

Lando produced a set of security cuffs from the crate he had opened and walked back to Cal, standing at the bottom of the ramp outside the ship. "I'm sorry," Lando said, hiding the cuffs in a curled hand, "but there won't be any payment."

"What are you talking about?!" Cal shouted.

"Yes, please tell me," Derran said from behind the Federation rep.

Cal spun to look at his trader, turning his back to Lando. Lando took the opportunity to close the small gap between him and the rep and slap the cuffs on him. Cal was terribly confused now. He tried to spin back around to see why this man had just cuffed his wrists behind his back, but Lando secured his shoulders.

Lando and Derran exchanged a silent greeting as the trader approached his rep. "May I?" Derran asked.

Lando, still standing on the ramp, was a good head taller than the rep standing on the moon's surface. He looked at Derran and nodded.

"What is going on here?" Cal asked. "Do you know this man? I want an explanation?"

Derran explanation came as a hard right across Cal's jaw. The trader had waited a long time to release his frustration at his snobby rep and held little back. Cal went limp immediately, and Lando was quick to catch him before he fell hard on the ramp. Lando spotted Ra'tok a dozen meters away, watching the action with interest, and he signaled the Defel over to the ship.

Ra'tok gladly took the unconscious Federation rep off Lando's hands and returned Derran's startled look. "Greetings," the alien said and then walked away before Derran could reply.

"You keep strange company, Calrissian."

"I go with what works."

The two men had not really been close in their former lives, but they had respected each other and exchanged firm handshakes now. "So what did I join up with?" Derran asked looking around at the furious activity that filled the small repair facility. "You guys setting up a little Federation strike force? Are you going to engage in piracy, or just boycott everything about the Federation?"

Lando looked at Derran closely. "How much did Han tell you?"

Derran took on a confident look, thinking Lando's confusion to be a result of him knowing more than he should. Lando was actually concerned of the opposite. He wondered if Derran knew what he was really getting into. "Han told me how Snotzenexer has compiled everything into the Trade Federation. He told me how Snotzenexer could strangle any planet he wanted to and that gave him more power than the Emperor ever had."

Lando was quiet for a while. Then he told him - everything. The two men stood motionless in front of Derran's ship for twenty minutes while Lando spoke. "Well," Derran said finally, clearing his throat nervously, "I've joined a suicide team."

"We won't loose," Lando said with ten times more confidence than he actually felt. "We can't loose. This is for the preservation of the entire galactic structure. Are you still in?"

"You'll never see me running from a fight, Calrissian," Derran replied, almost insulted, "especially when I'm on the right side. However, I can't speak for the others who will be arriving shortly. While the majority of them are idealistic and would agree that Snotzenexer is wrong, they aren't all fighters and might not have the stomach for it."

Lando nodded, expecting as much. He had heard the stories of how Han had run out on the rebellion 30 years ago when he realized the full scope of what they were trying to do. If one of the original rebellion's most valuable assets had reacted that way, he would not be able to blame anyone else for the same reaction. Han had, of course, changed his mind before it was too late, but Lando could not hope for that if several traders left when they learned the truth.

"Instead of worrying about the future," Derran interrupted Lando's thoughts, "let's live in the present, and you can show me what assets we have. I see that you have several Imperial fighters over there." Derran was looking off to the area where the V-38's were being serviced. The Jedi had been rough with them during the training runs and they needed repairs.

"Those are special, too," Lando said. He explained what the ships were as the two men walked in that direction.

Derran absorbed the information eagerly, surprised at the existence of such a weapon. The trader was distracted, though, when they passed Lando's ship. Derran looked at the Skipray Blastboat with a warped sense of respect. Lando suddenly remembered that he had used this ship to make a pirate hit on Derran a week ago. Surely the Needle Hole Nebula was too dense for Derran to pick up any of the ship's unique markings.

"Good ship," Derran finally said, though his voice was distant as if remembering the incident. "Good pirate ship."

"It was too," Lando said. "I picked it up at a Republic Military auction. They stripped it down before they sold it, but I was able to juice it back up."

Derran accepted Lando's explanation and kept moving toward the V-38's. "I see you've done some extra modifications yourself," Derran said, when he got close enough to see the turbo laser barrels sticking out of the twin torpedo tubes, "unless they came like that." Lando could tell from his friend's voice that he did not believe the Empire capable of such a modification.

"No," Lando assured him. "We have a rather talented engineer who designed that modification."

Derran walked right up to a ship to see it for himself. "It looks like you have some sort of energy containment field here to replace those clumsy Imperial batteries. Ah," he said tracing the system on the ship, "it's drawn out of containment with the use of the hyperspace accelerator, though an energy adapter, and depositing it into the turbo focuser and through the barrel."

Derran looked up from his examination. "It can only fire about four times, though, before the energy is used up. It might be smaller than the batteries, but not nearly as effective."

"Actually," Lando said, "the guy who designed them says they can fire up to 50 times each before needing to be recharged."

"Impossible," Derran refuted, turning back to look at the ship. "That would have to be a very special energy containment device."

"It's an anti-matter flywheel," Lando said and instantly wished he had not.

"Anti-matter," Derran said quietly. "If that's the case, then . . ." He looked more closely at the energy adapter he had brushed over earlier, recognizing the matter to anti-matter adapter for what it was. His head popped up and he looked at the rest of the fighters. Twenty-four fighter, two MAM adapters per fighter. That makes 48 MAM adapters. His eyes went back to the Skipray Blastboat and then to Lando.

Lando was backing up slowly, realizing the game was up. He did not know if Derran was going to be mad, but if he was, Lando was not going to blame him.

"You!" Derran started, walking toward Lando. "You are going to pay for the repairs to my ship. And you-" Derran paused, realizing there had not been any major damage done to his ship. He also realized that if it had not been for that pirate attack, he would have never contacted Han, and he would not be on this moon right now with over a hundred more traders on the way. "You clever little son of a Hut. Did you orchestrate that?"

Lando relaxed a little. He was not sure if all was forgiven, but it did look like Derran was going to stay. "No," Lando replied, "I was a puppet just like you." This got a laugh from the trader. "The man who orchestrated that little escapade and this entire rebellion is below on the planet, but he should be coming up after a while."

"Can't wait to meet him," Derran said with a smile. "Maybe he will pay for my ship." The two men laughed and walked toward the main office building in search of a meal.

***

Sanson was dead tired when she finally made it back to her quarters. Snotzenexer was waiting for her, reading a novel. She almost laughed out loud at him. How could he be so calm right now? Snotzenexer put the bookpad down when his wife entered. His smile was very disarming. "And how was your day?"

Sanson could hear the sarcasm laced through the greeting and did not bother with a verbal response, though the comment had the desired affect. Sanson began to relax. Her husband was still in control and everything would be fine.

"We need to get more ships to Torenick," Snotzenexer said, suddenly turning back to business.

Sanson sighed. She had really hoped her husband's calm demeanor meant he was not going to discuss business before bed. "How many?" she asked.

"Just a couple," Snotzenexer said as if it was not a big deal and his wife just had Star Destroyers lying around with nothing to do. "Maybe three."

Sanson nodded and walked back out of the bedroom. She returned a few minutes later. "Two and two Dreadnoughts will be there shortly after the siege ships you sent. Anything else?"

Snotzenexer smiled mischievously at his wife. "Yes. I order you to forget about everything and just come to bed."

"And if I refuse?" she asked with a straight face.

"I will have to arrest you and try you for treason."

Sanson's tough facade fell away. "Please, no more trials."

"Then you better come to bed."

Snotzenexer won, and Sanson flipped off the lights before crossing the room to the large bed. He always won.

***

Ships began arriving about once every 10 minutes for 24 hours after Derran Speedsting's arrival. The small Torenick moon was quickly getting very crowded. With the ships came several things. There were large shipments of food, which were immediately prepared by the expensive catering service that had been hired and served to the hundreds of people on the moon. Several ships brought valuable technical supplies, and they were used to stock the quickly expanding repair shop.

Each ship also came with a very disgruntled Trade Federation Representative. Some of the early reps had not gone into captivity quietly, and it had been necessary to place Ra'tok in charge of the arrests. None of the reps gave the rebels any trouble after that.

Several of the traders enjoyed the spectacle of arresting the reps and joined in the fun. Mara thought to put a stop to it, not wishing the reps to be harmed in any way, but she saw that Ra'tok understood her concerns and often went out of his way to go easy on the prisoners. Also Mara realized that the more animosity these trader developed toward the Trade Federation the easier it would be for them to accept the truth about Snotzenexer.

So far only Derran Speedsting knew the truth. The rest of the men merely thought they were going on strike. There was some talk of starting their own Trade Organization with all the money going to the traders without a massive Federation to support. Mara knew that if they won - they had to win! - life in the galaxy would have to go on, and this new trade organization might prove necessary.

Luke and Han were one of the last ships to land on the moon. Everyone recognized the Falcon as soon as it dropped out of hyperspace, still several minutes from the moon. A cheer rose up from the crowd when the Falcon was landing. Mara almost cringed at the hero worship they were giving the old smuggler. Then she started to listen to what the men were saying. There were at least 60 traders surrounding the landing pad the Falcon was aimed at, yet she could pick out a few phrases.

"Wait till Delan gets a loud of Ra'tok!"

"He'll teach that Fowlry wench a thing or two!"

"I'd like to see her try to get rough with him!"

Mara only then remembered that Luke had been masquerading as a woman, a highly attractive Frolian named Delan Fowlry. Mara also knew that it was a small enough galaxy that half of these men had probably run into Han and Luke, and half of them had probably made an advance on the Jedi Master. Mara could imagine what Luke's responses had been like.

The landing pad cleared itself of people enough for Han to land his ship, and then the people closed in again. Mara's new hunch that they were waiting for Delan Fowlry and not Han himself was proven correct when he and Chewie strolled out of the ship to only moderate applause. Luke was right behind the pair, and the crowd gave slightly more of a reception. Luke was supposed to be exiled on Hoth, and the few in the crowd who knew this gave the Jedi Master some respect for escaping.

The crowd became very restless when Delan Fowlry did not make an appearance. Han, Chewie, and Luke made their way to Mara rather easily. "What are they waiting for?"

Mara pointed to Ra'tok. "My friend over there has been putting on a show for these guys, arresting TFR's. Apparently you are one of their least favorites," she said to Luke.

"Ah," Luke replied, realizing the situation perfectly.

The Jedi Master made his way back through the crowd. The men around him were shouting to Ra'tok. "Go in and get her, Defel." "She'll be easy to spot. She's got an ego the size of this moon."

Luke stepped onto the sloped ramp of the Falcon. A few men thought the Jedi Master was going in after the rep and they cheered him on. Instead Luke turned around and was suddenly Delan Fowlry. The crowd was deathly silent. Luke smiled at the reaction. He went a little further and picked out a few members of the crowd he recognized from bar encounters and proceeded to make fun of them.

At first the crowd was embarrassed. They were embarrassed that they had yelled for the arrest of the Jedi Master; they were embarrassed that they had thought Luke to be a woman; but most of all, they were embarrassed that most of them had tried to hit on him.

After embarrassment, a few people became angry, but that quickly switched to jealousy. Why had Han been able to get by without having to deal with a real TFR? That was not fair! Of course, then they all realized that Han had cheated the Trade Federation and gotten away with it, and the hero worship Mara had been afraid of came in full.

Han soaked it up for a while, but another ship was landing, and the crowd, led by Ra'tok, went over to investigate. "How much do they know?" he asked Mara once the last of the men were out of earshot.

"Very little," Mara replied. "All they think is that they are going on strike. Your friend Speedsting knows the truth and is estimating between a 10 and 20 percent fallout once we tell them what they are really here for.

Han watched as the TFR on the next ship, a brute of a man, was nearly reduced to tears as Ra'tok intimidated him into submission. The crowd loved it. "I doubt five ships abandon us," Han said.

"I hope you're right," Mara replied.

"When do we tell them?" Han asked.

"When they all get here. We want to hit them all at once so no rumors can get started. So far it has been an almost party atmosphere and no one has started any rumors past starting a new trade organization. There are only two more summoned ships due, though over a dozen ships have shown up without a summons. Apparently word travels fast among you traders. Since Anakin did not calculate their routes, they might be arriving for several days."

Mara watched as one of the two ships she mentioned left hyperspace, and the crowd moved to intercept. "Of course we have nothing to tell them until Thomas shows up. He and Leia are down on the planet putting the finishing touches on the report. I understand that they have most of it on holo-film now. We are going to present it to the men and fill in what we don't have on film. It should be pretty convincing."

"Who's going to lead the presentation?" Han asked.

"Thomas, Derran, and I," Mara responded. "We thought it best to hit them with unbiased people. Very few people know what I've done for the cause, and a few of the traders asked me how Karrde was doing. I think they still think I'm one of them."

Han nodded. He turned his attention to the planet below, remembering that he had not seen his wife in over a month. In fact, he had not seen any of his family in a long time. Anakin was on the moon somewhere, and Jacen and Jaina were - well, he had no idea where they were. He had asked Luke several times to see if he could find them in Force, but each time the Jedi Master had been unable to find the twins. Han hoped they were okay.

For the past few seconds, Han's eyes had been instinctively following a small dot moving against the backdrop of the planet. Now that his private thoughts were over, he recognized the dot as an approaching ship. When trying to communicate with Leia over the past two dozen years, Han had not learned to use the Force to reach out to her, but he had learned the technique to open his own mind so Leia could more easily pick it out of a crowd. Han did this now, and he imagined he could see the small ship accelerate toward the moon when Leia made contact with him.

"Here they come," Han said, drawing Mara away from the next TFR arrest.

Mara looked at the small spot moving toward the moon, still almost indecipherable as a ship. "Are you sure that's them?"

"Trust me. I'm married to someone on that ship, and if it's not Leia then I've been lying to my kids about their real mother for years."

Mara bowed slightly in mock respect to Han's supposed Force skills and the pair moved off to a much smaller landing pad to wait for the leaders of their new rebellion. It took another ten minutes for the small TBC shuttle to land on the moon, and Han's impatience grew by the second. Finally the ship landed, and Leia burst out of the craft to great her husband. They kissed and spun each other around while Mara and Thomas exchanged a much more restrained greeting.

"Do you have everything?" Mara asked.

Thomas nodded and held up a small holo-cube. "It's all here. I brought a large holo-projector with me, too. I figured this small repair facility would be inadequately repaired for our media presentation. It's a pretty big device, and we might need a loadlifter to-"

Mara shook her head. Thomas was not used to working with Jedi yet. "Luke!" she called over her shoulder. "Come over here. We need you to flex your Jedi muscles for us."

While Luke moved the holo-projector, Mara turned her attention to the last summoned ship as it touched down smoothly. "Now we need to get everyone assembled into one of the new buildings."

Two hours later there was deathly silence among the crowd of over two hundred. One hundred thirty-six ships had been summoned and fifteen had come on their own. Many of them had copilots, and some had three to work the ship. There were 127 men, 59 women, and 43 aliens, not including the core group of rebels.

Thomas turned off the holo-projector and stood on the main platform with Mara and Derran. The presentation had been a shortened version of what would be released to the galactic public in a few hours. It did not elaborate on each issue, but neither did it spare the often gory details.

Very few, if any, of the people present had been directly affected by Snotzenexer's acts. The usual thoughts of an independent mind said that they were not concerned with other people's troubles as long as they did not interfere with their own life. The thought patterns of someone in a group were much different. The studies on group psychology show that when in a group, normal moral or rational barriers were much more easily torn down. It is much easier to join in an activity when everyone around you was doing it to and you would not stick out as much.

Mara sincerely doubted that more than a handful of people, if that, would have joined their cause if they had been approached individually. But now, after a few shouts of "I'm in," and "Let's get him," the entire room was shouting to go to war against Snotzenexer.

Mara smiled and turned Thomas. "We'll win."

"We have to," he replied as usual.

Chapter 18 "Senate Adjurned"

Farion Plebotius the chief engineer at the VCY watched as the Star Destroyer dropped out of hyperspace in front of him. A large troop transport fell into real space right behind the war ship, and Farion swallowed hard, hoping whoever had thrown this plan together knew what they were doing.

Farion had received word barely an hour ago that Sanson was sending a Commander Tren to pick up her remaining ships and they better be ready. Farion was on the bridge of one of the eight Star Destroyers still in the care of the VCY. Commander Tren wasted very little time raising Farion on the com.

"This is Commander Tren of the Republic Navy. I'm looking for Chief Engineer Plebotius."

"This is Farion Plebotius," Farion responded, his voice only a little shaky.

"Are the ships ready for the trip back to Coruscant?"

"Yes," Farion croaked.

"Good. I will be sending troops to take charge of these ships. You will need to use tractor beams to guide them in, and then they will relieve your men of duty."

"Understood." Farion knew this conversation could be heard by the other seven ships and did not bother relaying the command. The engineer watched as the troop transport ship fired off eight different capsules. Each capsule was over 100 meters in length and could hold up to 300 troops. They had no real engines and relied on the mothership's projection and the receiving ship's tractor beams for guidance.

It would have been the easiest thing in the galaxy to just blow apart each of the shieldless capsules and then turn eight Star Destroyers on Commander Tren's one. The problem in that line of reasoning was that each of the eight ships had no weapon capabilities until the bridge codes were reinserted. If not for that, Ferris Loyran, the VCY President, would have stolen the ships a long time ago.

Farion locked his ship's tractor beam onto one of the eight troop capsules and made sure his men would guide it into the main hangar at the bottom of the ship. Farion thought through his part of this plan one last time, and then donned a radiation helmet. "This better work," he said to himself.

The large capsule was drawn smoothly into the large hangar of the massive Star Destroyer. Once fully inside the ship, the hangar doors closed beneath the capsule and the tractor beam gently lowered the transport to the closed hatch. The lieutenant in charge of the transport was quick to open the door and exit the ship. Once he looked around the large hangar, he was much quicker to hop back inside the capsule and reseal the door.

Everyone in the hangar wore radiation suites and was hauling around large, clearly labeled barrels of toxic waste. Farion saw the lieutenant's reaction from a distance as he walked toward the capsule and smiled. Once Farion reached the door to the capsule, he heard the frightened lieutenant speak through a com unit on the outside of the transport.

"Who are you?"

"I'm the chief engineer, Farion Pleb-"

"What's going on here?! I was told that this ship is ready to go. What are those men hauling around?"

They were hauling around barrels of water, but Farion was not about to tell this lieutenant that. "We had a little problem on these ships," Farion started his lie. "We tried to get by the bridge lockout to test the hyperspace engines directly and suffered a massive reactor leak. Oh, we fixed everything up nice," Farion added, seeing the lieutenant's worried face, "but we still need to vent the entire engine compartment and most of the ship to remove the residual radiation. As you can see, we've managed to collect all the solid waste, but there is still a lot of airborne radiation we need to get rid of."

"Well what's keeping you?!"

"Sir," Farion explained slowly, "the only way we can vent the hyperspace engine compartment is to enter hyperspace." This was the first time Farion was being completely honest with the lieutenant.

"You need the codes," the lieutenant could see where this was leading. "I am not authorized to give you or anyone else the codes. I have direct instructions from Admiral Sanson herself to administer the bridge codes only after my crew has taken control of this ship."

"Be my guest," Farion replied. "I'm afraid we don't have any extra radiation suits, but there are only a few really bad sections left on the ship. The bridge is pretty clean."

The lieutenant slowly reopened the door to the transport and instructed the rest of his men to stay inside. The man had obviously reduced the level of his breathing, as if this would somehow keep the radiation from penetrating the rest of his body.

"You see," Farion said when the lieutenant didn't fall over dead, "it's not that bad in here. The suits are more for a precautionary measure than anything else." Farion led the still tentative lieutenant toward the hangar exit and to the main section of the ship.

A very small medical station was located right next to the door out of the hangar to tend to any injuries suffered by men working the ships in the hangar. The lieutenant saw a long bag lying on a table just outside of the medical station. Walking past the table, the lieutenant looked at the half-opened bag. In it, there was man, obviously dead. His skin had been charred black and very vicious volcano-like sores on his skin littered his face and chest. His mouth was half opened and it looked like his teeth had been turned to powder.

Farion let the lieutenant soak in the sight before he reacted to it. "Oh my! I'm sorry sir!" The engineer walked quickly over to the body bag and zipped it up. "I'm sorry about that, sir. You shouldn't have had to see that."

"Wh-wh-what h-happened t-t-to him?" the lieutenant was barely able to ask.

"Radiation accident, I'm afraid. He got a little tear in his suit without noticing."

"And th-this happened d-during the accident?"

"No. This happened about two hours ago. He wandered too near the engine compartment. Like I said some of the ship is still heavily cont-"

The lieutenant moved faster than Farion had ever seen anyone move before. Farion had not even completed the word "contaminated," and the lieutenant was back in his transport with the door closed. The lieutenant knew the layout of an Imperial Star Destroyer very well. It was impossible to get to the bridge without going very near the engine compartment.

Farion walked slowly back over to the capsule. "Sir, if we are to fix this problem, we are going to need the bridge codes."

"H-how long will this v-venting take?" he was desperately trying to keep the shake out of his voice.

"Only a few minutes, I promise. We'll be back before you realize were gone. We just want to do the venting outside the Varion system. You know, it's not nice to dirty your own backyard."

The door to the transport opened quickly and then closed. Farion barely registered the transaction, but looked down at his gloved hand and saw that he now held a small data chip. "You and your men might feel safer off the main ship," Farion said. "If we were to have another accident I don't think your hull would protect you very much." Farion rapped his knuckles on the leadless durasteel for emphasis.

The lieutenant then came to realize that his earlier antics of shallow breathing and seeking sanctuary in his transport were doing very little to repel any type of dangerous radiation. "A sound suggestion," the lieutenant replied. "You may put us off while you conduct your venting operation."

The lieutenant could not get off the ship fast enough, and Farion motioned to the hangar technician to place the capsule back in space. Farion turned his back on the operation and walked out of the hangar with the data chip in hand. As he walked past the body bag, he unzipped the bag a little so the man inside could breath a little easier. The make-up artists from the TBC had done a marvelous job on the man.

When Farion got to the bridge of his ship, he saw that the rest of the Star Destroyers had already rejected their troop capsules. Apparently, his lieutenant had been the hardest to convince. It was a great plan. Farion slipped the data chip into the appropriate slot in the commander's chair and transmitted the go signal on a private channel to the rest of his ships.

From the troop capsule, the Imperial Lieutenant watched the eight ships blast off into hyperspace. Disastrous thoughts began to creep into his mind, but he tried desperately to dismiss them. "They'll be back," he told himself. "After all, they still haven't been paid." He REALLY hoped they would be back, or else he would be floating in space somewhere over Coruscant, wishing for death by radiation when Sanson found out. "But if you don't come back," he found himself saying quietly, "kill her for me, please."

***

Snotzenexer watched the holo broadcast with a very sick feeling in his gut. Asteroids were flying widely at him in a dizzying array of special effects. The scene change was dramatic as an asteroid spun out of nowhere and detonated the camera location. The new scene was one of the ravished planets, Denor, Snotzenexer thought. If the president's memory was accurate, and it almost always was, these were the same scenes used earlier in the week in the documentary to show how he had poured billions of his own credits into the rescue efforts.

Now the scene changed to a picture of a lone asteroid. Digital effects were used to break a very small portion of the asteroid off of the whole and explode it in the corner of the projection. Symbols and numbers scrolled down from that corner identifying the mineral makeup of the rocks that destroyed the Denorid system. The projection then split in two and a Varion asteroid was shown in the second half. A small portion of that asteroid was also enlarged to the corner of the screen, and its composition fell beneath it. Both asteroids then disappeared and the compositions were enlarged and brought to the center of the screen, so even the blind viewers could see they were identical.

There was a voice explaining everything in the background, and Snotzenexer thought that the TBC had gone so far has to employ the same guy that had done all the narrating for his documentary. The next visual aid showed what the mineral composition of a typical Danzig asteroid looked like. It, of course, looked nothing like a Varion asteroid.

"But why?" the narrator asked. It had been a question that he had asked his engrossed audience at least a dozen times before. The broadcast had started with Snotzenexer's attack on the Academy almost a year ago when he was serving under Talon and Thrawn. It had explained how he had taken over the Varion Imperial Bank. It had shown how he had destroyed the Porylen Entertainment Network after he had cashed in on the stock market. The broadcast would continue to explain how Snotzenexer had destroyed his own bank on Iom. After each accusation the narrator would ask "why?"

In each case the answer was the same. "Imperials know of only one way to exist: kill and destroy until you are in control. Then when you are in control, kill and destroy to stay there."

Snotzenexer knew that this broadcast would be the end of him. He might be able to put off any action by the senate for a while until they gathered the necessary information to remove him. In the meantime he needed to gather his three power bases together: banking, trading, and the military. He had just killed his trade advisor. The Coruscant Galactic Bank was putting the merger on hold until the VIB mess that Sandie Hollins had created could be cleaned up. And the bulk of the military was immobile for at least another day until the changes the scrimmage had inspired were put into effect.

None of these things should have been a problem if the stupid rebels had not put out this broadcast. Snotzenexer had planned on a few more tame releases before the big one hit. By that time, he would have completed the merger with the CGB, would have control of the military, and would have a replacement for Cog Fardin. Killing the Twi'lek had not been part of the plan, but replacing him had been.

Sanson walked into the room looking radiant. She had already seen the broadcast. Snotzenexer was watching it for the second time. It was the only thing showing on any TBC owned network. Sanson had ignored it and went to get ready for the special senate session, which would be very special now.

"How much do you think they will believe?" Sanson asked, zipping up the back of her gown as far as she could reach.

Snotzenexer got up and obliged his wife. "Oh, they will believe everything they can accept. Right now I don't think they can accept the fact that they unanimously elected a mass murderer to office and placed his ruthless wife in charge of their entire military. I'll give them a day to come to grips with that and then we will be forced to make a move."

"Will that be a problem?" Sanson asked slipping her feet into a pair of delicate heels. She was taking this all very well.

"We have already made our moves. The rebels will be wiped out by the end of the day and all the rebellious traders with them. I looked at the list of traders and it will take most of them a day or two to make it to Torenick. They should have been more secretive until they had the whole group together.

"You have the military being overhauled with an Imperial core as we speak, and that should be done by the end of the day. After the session I will meet with the CGB board and insist that they move forward with the merger. I have my ways."

"Kind of puts a new meaning on the phrase 'hostile takeover,'" Sanson joked, getting a laugh from her husband.

In reality, the two Imperials were calmer now than they had been in a long time. Seven months ago, they had decided to go straight. Though the idea went against their basic Imperial principals, it had made the most sense at the time. Now the rebels had forced their hand and wanted to play rough. Snotzenexer and Sanson could do that - it had been their original plan from the beginning anyway. Now they were calm because the anxiety of seeing which way it was going to go was over.

The Senate Chambers Building was a short trip from the palace, and Snotzenexer and Sanson entered the restricted presidential section without any comments from the guards on duty. These guards were some of the very few that Snotzenexer had not been able to replace with his own people. Whether they had seen the TCB broadcast or not, they gave no resistance or disrespect to the ruling family as they entered the presidential quarters at the base of the huge senate chamber.

Sanson and Snotzenexer took the open lift up to the central senate box and activated the hovercraft. The largest of all the senate boxes slowly floated up the central axis of the huge cylindrical chamber and stopped halfway. Snotzenexer watched as the numerous boxes that littered the wall of the chamber slowly filled with senators, secretaries, and aids.

The president tried to catch the eye of several senators but none of them returned his looks. They had all seen the broadcast. TBC had released the two hour long report during the dead of night, Coruscant time, but every planet had their own time, and many of the senators received calls from their home planet regarding the report.

The only planned legislation was to be the realignment of the military, though the prelegislation topics would still be discussed as usual. Snotzenexer had a pretty good idea what they would cover during that time. It was written code that all prelegislation discussion should take no longer than one hour and Snotzenexer was pretty sure he could deflect all accusations for that length of time. After all, all they had to go on were reports from a network several sectors away.

Senator Evlyn Cariasco, the chair of the investigation committee held in her hands the final report from her team on Xentin. It stated that the results of their investigation prove Narion Loits, a representative of the VIB was responsible for the destruction on Xentin. There were at least seven different lines of reasoning used to arrive at this conclusion, all of which were very valid by themselves.

The female senator was just now entering her senate box. She had arranged with several of the more prominent senators to allow her access to the president during the prelegislation portion of the session. They had told her that one other senator had a similar request with different incriminating evidence against the president, and they would use both the reports in conjunction to initiate a vote of no confidence in President Snotzenexer.

The guards had been alerted to the seriousness of the charges that were going to be brought against Snotzenexer and that it would be necessary to take the president into custody after the session ended. Each guard was prepared to rush onto the scene if the need should arise.

Evlyn took a long drink of water to try and rinse her nervousness away as she stepped into her box. She had been told that the other senator was going to give their presentation first. Evlyn wondered who that other senator was.

Senator Ellynor Belsiphvin had been a close friend to Leia, and now she scolded herself for leading the charge to replace their old president with this Imperial bastard. She had even been nominated to replace Leia after the former president had been deposed. Ellynor had refused the nomination, deferring to Snotzenexer. She had been the first person to greet the then senator when he had arrived on Coruscant and had held the naive notion that she had been one of the few who had groomed him for leadership.

Ellynor had been close friends to the Solos and to their family doctor. Dr. Herren Finsch had called her last night and told her about the evidence of prolan gas in the surviving members of the scrimmage. He explained at length the effects of the gas on people during normal activity, and then stressed the effects on people during times of adrenaline or anxiety.

It was pretty simple. Snotzenexer (or Sanson - it did not really matter at this point) had put prolan gas on board Captain Collins' ships and released it when Captain Paxtin began his dive bombing raid. The fact that this would initiate hallucinations in Captain Collins and his men was not information that would be hard to come by.

Senator Belsiphvin settled into her centrally located senate box and leveled a steady glare on the president. She saw that he was busy trying to get other senators to return his glances and wished that he would look her way, but he never did.

Snotzenexer noticed that the senate chamber filled more quickly than usual. He could hardly blame them. The camera droids were buzzing about in the air all around his senate box, and Snotzenexer ignored them for the most part. He could almost hear what the announcer on the other side of these cameras must be saying. Each senate session was broadcast live to anyone who wanted to watch it, and the announcer must be treating this broadcast as the last one in which the viewing audience would see President Snotzenexer in the central senate box.

Snotzenexer started the session with very little flair, knowing there would be plenty of excitement before the session was over without needing to add any of his own. Senator Belsiphvin was the first to speak.

Her box floated gently away from the curved wall. "I have in my hands a report from Dr. Herren Finsch," she started.

Snotzenexer did not remember any medical accusations made in the TBC and wondered what this could be about.

"He was and still is heavily involved in treating those suffering from injuries sustained during the ill-fated scrimmage of two days ago. This report tells of his findings in several officers that served under Captain Collins during the scrimmage."

Snotzenexer knew he was in trouble before the senator finished. This could only be about one thing.

"Dr. Finsch found clear evidence of prolan gas in every bridge officer he tested. Many of you will remember that prolan gas was discussed in this chamber a week ago, though I don't believe its specific effects were laid out for the main assembly."

Senator Belsiphvin then went on to explain in Dr. Finsch's words what prolan gas is capable of doing to people in the heat of a moment. She went on to report the rarity of the gas and the amount that would be necessary to fill several command bridges as was the case in this situation.

"Before any questions or discussion takes place on this topic, I would like to turn the floor over to Senator Cariasco."

Snotzenexer was not even given the chance to recognize Senator Cariasco. Senator Belsiphvin had done that for him, effectively enacting the one two punch that would not have been possible if she had relinquished her recognition back to president as was customary. Snotzenexer knew he was under an organized attack and barely heard Senator Cariasco's report as he thought of a way out.

"As many of you know," Evlyn Cariasco started after her box had moved into the center of the chamber, "I am the head of the investigation committee." Everyone assumed this was going to be about the scrimmage also, because they all knew Senator Cariasco's teams had done all the investigation into the results of the scrimmage. "I had placed a team on Xentin a few weeks back to investigate the mining disaster that took place there almost eight months ago. Many of you will remember that the disaster on Xentin was the first loan cancellation that had started the-" she almost said "Snotzenexer Miracle," but caught herself in time, "financial turmoil we endured after President Organa-Solo was removed from office.

"As part of our agreement to help planets and business rebuild after Imperial occupation with financial aid, we passed a bill to investigate any investment that failed. The disaster on Xentin fell into this category and was worthy of investigation.

"My team spent over a week on Xentin and has found out that the disaster was not the result of a natural occurrence or of a miscalculation by the mining team. They have definite proof that it was deliberate terrorist act. Drilling has shown that high levels of radiation are present in the ruins, radiation that could only come from an atomic explosion. There was only one visitor in the mining complex at the time of the accident that did not have a security pass. He was given a special tour of the main mining facility, which included a visit to the most fragile portion of the mine.

"The visitor died in the explosion while witnessing the disaster from a distant observation ledge. Though the ledge was pummeled with debris, it was spared from lava and human remains were gathered. Along with the body, an advanced detonation device disguised as a camera was found. The visitor was posing as an investment evaluator for the Varion Imperial Ba-"

Senator Belsiphvin's report had shocked the senate into silence, but this report stirred the senate into an uproar. The cries of outrage drowned out Senator Cariasco's last comments, but the senate had heard enough. So had Snotzenexer. He knew what he had to do.

"Silence!!" The scream was accompanied an incredibly loud electronic gavel. The intense volume of the shout from a president who was usually placid scared the senate into immediate compliance. "These reports are inaccurate and I hope further investigation will show that I have had no involv-" As Snotzenexer talked, he reached under his box's instrument panel to a secret compartment he had installed. He flipped it open and hit a switch. Every senate box in the entire chamber suddenly disconnected from the wall and floated several meters into the middle of the huge cylindrical chamber.

"-furthermore I will make sure that those responsible for these atroc-" Snotzenexer pretended to notice the boxes' sudden movement away from the wall. "What's going on! Someone is sabotaging the senate chamber! Security!" Snotzenexer then hit a second switch in his secret compartment.

Vexon gas is the most lethal gas in the known galaxy. Snotzenexer's first exposure to it was in his initial tour of the Varion Imperial Bank on Iom, the same day he took over. The main, underground vault was protected with vexon gas. The vault door was hollow and filled with the lethal chemical. The gas's acidic nature affected every type of material save the highest grades of glassine and durasteel.

Tanks made of high-grade durasteel had been installed under the floor of the senate chamber months ago, and now these tanks released their contents into the chamber through the floor mounted ventilation units. The fan blades that propelled the lethal gas into the vast chamber began to deteriorate significantly before the first waves of the gas even reached the lowest senate boxes.

The fans were totally inoperable within 30 seconds, but by then the quickly expanding and all consuming gas had filled the chamber and was well on its destructive way. Snotzenexer kept up his surprised act for as long as the small camera droids remained functioning. The acidic gas ate away at the delicate circuits within the camera droids, and Snotzenexer saw the camera lights go out moments before the repulsar unit failed and sent the droids crashing to the floor far below.

The effect of the gas was much more destructive on the senators. By inhaling the gas, the acid worked its victims from the inside out as well as the outside in. These senators did not last long and their screams were short lived. The gas did not care that these victims were already dead and progressed to turn the corpse into puddles of steaming liquid.

Several bold, if not a little stupid, senators tried to make the impossible jump back toward their personal senate chambers. With out a running start and with the considerable age of most of the senators, the gap between the senate boxes and the open doors mounted in the walls was too large, and those who tried found themselves falling through the air, often bouncing off of several doors beneath them. Their flight through the acidic gas increased their exposure to it, and their gelatinous corpses met a gruesome fate on the chamber floor.

Several of the senators breathed methane and had tanks connected to respirators. These victims were kept alive longer as the vexon gas ate away at their thick hides, searing their nervous system before the intense pain could render them unconscious. Their breathing apparatuses could not hold up to the acidic nature of the gas, and soon they too suffocated on the poison, but not before watching their bodies melt from their bones.

Snotzenexer took particular interest in the Hut senator that had joined the Republic after the Trade Federation had threatened to put his organization out of business. Huts had the ability to hold their breath for a very lengthy time and had a very resilient hide. The huts skin grew white hot as it fought against the vexon gas. The president could see the strain on the Hut's face to hold its breath under that pain he was experiencing. His senate box was also experiencing incredible strain, for not only did it have to support his and his associate's weight, but now its strength was being stolen from the acid gas that surrounded its circuits. One of the repulsar units failed before the others and tipped the senate box severely. Both Huts tumbled from the box and screamed their decent right past Snotzenexer's box. When they hit the floor far below, the sight was similar to that of a water balloon filled with green mud.

When Snotzenexer had summoned security right before he released the vexon gas every available guard had rushed to the nearest entrance to the main senate chamber. When they looked out the open doors, they noticed that the senate box that was supposed to be attached at each respective point was floating several meters away. Some guards made the leap to the boxes while others just watched the spectacle from the open doorway. In every case, the result was the same. Each guard was dead or dying before he knew that he was in mortal danger.

Through it all, Snotzenexer and Sanson remained safe inside their box, which repelled the imposing gas with a simple air pressure shield. While Sanson remained safe, she did not feel so standing next to her husband. She had killed plenty of men in her life, and this little display would put her husband close to her total, but she still had him beat. Still, she had never been part of such a gruesome display as what she now saw.

Bodies were draped over the sides of senate boxes, dripping as if they were wax statues in the hot sun. More of the senate box repulsars began to fail, tipping their grotesque contents to plummet though the air. "What have you done?" Sanson asked in a hoarse whisper.

Snotzenexer looked about the room. The skin of the many different races of the Republic colored the walls of the chamber. The floor of the chamber was quickly filling senate boxes and melted senators. "I dissolved the senate."

Sanson almost threw-up at the macabre humor. Snotzenexer too thought that he had done enough and flipped another switch. Tanks that contained a base almost as lethal emptied their contents into the huge chamber. Visibility disappeared as the two opposing gases neutralized each other into hissing steam and salt water. The neutralization process lasted a long time, for the base was not the polar opposite of the vexon gas and needed easily twice the volume to fully cancel the volatile acid.

After five minutes it was over. Snotzenexer opened the barely operational vents at the top of the chamber and let the remaining gasses and steam evacuate into the Coruscant sky. The couple could not exit the chamber the way they had entered for the path down was severely clogged. Instead they moved their box over to one of the open doorways into a private senate chamber.

Snotzenexer and Sanson both donned gas masks that Snotzenexer had kept in his senate box and stepped out of the protective shell of their pressure shield. They immediately began to feel a stinging sensation on their skin and raced toward an exit from the private chambers. The turbo lift was no longer operational, but they were not that high up and it only took a short trip on the stairs.

The couple emerged from the senate building with only minor burns on their skin, pretending to be in much worse pain than they were. Medics rushed to their aid and helped them into an airbus that whisked them back to the palace where they would receive medical aid.

Snotzenexer was faking delirium from the pain, but his mind was racing very efficiently. He gave himself a 50-50 chance of making it through this. It all depended on how the media interpreted the incident. He would give a little speech as soon as his doctors let him, but it would be up to the media, and then ultimately, the people. Snotzenexer laid back for now, his mind clouding over from the sedative that was being fed into his arm. He would not go down without a fight.

Chapter 19 "Overkill"

Thomas was looking forward to watching the senate proceedings, trying to figure out how Snotzenexer would react. He did not get the opportunity.

"Thomas," Mara said, bursting into his room, "they're here."

Thomas nodded, knowing that he would be able to catch the session later. They always played the important ones over and over and over . . .

"Just six siege ships?" Thomas asked, remembering what Ghent had reported.

Mara nodded. Siege ships were formidable attack ships, but had very weak defenses. They were covered with laser turrets and had dozens of torpedo tubes. In addition most siege ships contained several dozen droid fighters. They were used in blockades to overwhelm individual ships, forcing them to retreat. They were not very effective in mass battle for they had little armor and specialized in dealing a lot of little damage instead of any large damage. Siege ships were used to turn ships away, not to destroy them.

"How many ships should we use?" Mara asked as they walked through the short hallway and out onto the moon's surface.

"All of them," Thomas replied without hesitation. Before Mara could question him, the former Imperial Captain explained. "We need a little morale boost. This should be just the thing."

"I doubt all the ships will even get airborne before the fight is over," Mara said, disagreeing with Thomas but not willing to fight about it.

The commander of the lead siege ship scanned the space above Torenick. He had received his orders and was going to repel any ship carrying cargo that entered Torenick space. He was going to enjoy this assignment. The last word he had received was that over 120 ships should try to reach the planet spread out over the next three days.

"Let them try," he told himself. "There isn't a freighter in existence that could fly past one of my ships, much less six."

"Sir," one of the bridge lieutenants spoke up, "we have incoming on radar."

"Good, our first catch of the day." The commander walked to the observation ledge and sat down in his large chair. He rose immediately. Out from around the dark side of the moon came a swarm of freighters, blotting out a full quarter of his forward view.

"Lieutenant! How many?!"

"Uncertain, sir," the young man sounded very scared. "There are too many for the sensors to pick them up."

The commander dragged his chair forward and activated his personal weapon controls on a small panel at the base of the observation ledge. He watched in horror as none of his missile trackers could get a solid lock an any individual ship and just kept jumping from one to another as they flew crossing patterns.

"Fire a missile spread at the center of the swarm," the commander ordered. Had all 120 of the fighters arrived at once?

The six siege ships fired as one, sending four dozen armed torpedoes at the incoming freighters. Like a flock of game birds flushed by a hunter, the swarm divided in perfect formation, opening a huge hole to accept the unguided missiles. The ships continued to fly apart, breaking into eight different groups. They increased the central gap by several hundred kilometers, surrounding the siege ships, and then swooped in, attacking the doomed vessels from every angle.

The commander held on to his chair as his ship rocked and exploded. Several control panels ignited in sparks and fire, throwing their officers back, burnt and screaming. "Signal our surrender!" the commander shouted, but the communications officer was slumped over his burning station.

"Oh, well," commander lamented as he turned back to the action outside. He was just in time to see a torpedo aimed right at him shatter through the glassine viewport and end his contemplation with a fiery finality.

All the siege ships were burning wrecks before the fight was two minutes old. Mara and Thomas watched the fight from the moon. "I told you it was overkill," she said, wondering how much confidence the traders could possibly gain from this victory.

"And I didn't disagr-" A flash of light in the corner of Thomas' vision interrupted his comment. The ships jumping in from hyperspace were just gray dots in the distance, but Thomas knew exactly what they were. "Solo!" Thomas screamed into a com connected to Han in the Falcon. "End your celebration. You've got a pair of Imperial Star Destroyers and two dreadnoughts closing in on you."

"Where?!" Han shouted back.

To answer Han's question and show off their remarkable range, the two Star Destroyers opened fire on the mass of freighters. The distance was far too great for any type of weapon lock, but trying to hit one of the ships while they were in the jumbled mess was like trying to hit a mynock in a dark cave when the ceiling was littered with them.

Few of the freighters had kept their shields up after the brief fight with the siege ships, and the laser fire landed on them hard. At the great distance, very little damage could be done, but several of the ships suffered minor explosions. The frieghters scrambled again, far less organized this time and turned hesitantly to face off against the four new, much more powerful ships.

Every pilot knew that the group would almost definitely defeat the four Imperial ships, but they each also knew it could not be done without losses, maybe heavy losses.

Vince walked out of the newly built dormitory behind Thomas and Mara. Thomas turned around at the noise. "Vince!" Thomas cried, surprised the pilot and his friends were not in their ships. "We need you an-"

But Vince could see the action for himself. "Don't worry," he said turning and running toward the hangar as he spoke, "we're on it."

Back in the freighters, Han tried to organize some semblance of an offense, but the result turned into just a swarmed attack run, which was probably just as effective. The gunners on the Imperial ships had very little trouble hitting a target, but because of the multitude of ships, they were never sure if they hit the same ship twice. None of the freighters suffered any serious damage, though over half of them had been hit at least once.

The randomness of the Imperial attacks ended when they launched the TIE fighters. While the freighters outnumbered the fighters, none of them were as nimble and they were all hampered from the minor hits scored on them by the Imperial capitol ships. The two groups of smaller ships moved out away from the larger ones to do battle in a more open arena.

Pretty soon the TIE's began to explode with some regularity, but now that the freighters were no longer conducting attack runs at the Imperial capitol ships at top speed, they were much easier targets for the turbo lasers. Four freighters met a fiery fate within the first few minutes of battle.

Han was getting very worried that this would not work like he had planned. Chewie hooted as he took out another TIE with the Falcon's turret, but then choked on the celebration as a turbo laser scorched the back of the ship, stealing most of its shields.

"Solo," came a familiar voce over the com. It was Vince and the 185th. "You need to stop worrying about the fighters. Your ships are too easy of a target while dog fighting. Focus on the capitol ships."

"I agree," Han replied, evading collision with a lame freighter, "but we'll be an even easier target to the fighters if all we do are attack runs on the capitol ships."

"We'll worry about the fighters, you worry about the capitol ships."

"You can't possibly take out all the fighters by yourself. There's over 70 of them left and you only have three in your squadron."

"Don't worry, Han," Vince reassured him. "We have some invisible friends with us."

The V-38's, Han remembered. "Gotcha." Han quickly relayed the orders to the rest of the group of traders. Though they harbored the same fears as Han, they trusted the retired general and resumed their attacks on the Star Destroyers. The TIE pilots recognized this change of strategy and could not be happier for it. Most of the trade ships had been modified considerably, and the weak laser fire from the Imperial fighters was doing little real damage. They all recognized that by engaging the ships out in the open, they gave their capitol ships a better target, but most of the TIE pilots did not appreciate being used as bait.

Now the freighters broke off their dog fighting engagements and commenced attack runs on the Star Destroyers. The TIE fighters had no problem keeping pace with the trade ships and were able to get several hits on the back of the freighters during the attack runs.

One TIE pilot looked frantically over his shoulder, wondering if this was some kind of trick. The freighters outnumbered the fighters and it was possible that the rebel pilots were just luring the TIE's into straight-line runs so they could be picked off from behind. Satisfied that he had no tail, the TIE pilot settled in behind a ship he easily recognized as the Millennium Falcon. He had just obtained a solid weapon lock on the Corellian freighter when a turbo laser blew the TIE out of the sky.

The TIE pilot had not seen the death bolt coming, but the Imperial Commander standing on the bridge of one of the Star Destroyers did. He also saw a dozen more just like it. "Where did those shots come from?" the commander demanded.

"They appear to have originated from empty space, sir," the sensor officer dared to reply.

The commander watched another of the phantom lasers leap out of nothing and take out a TIE. "Retrace the trajectory of that shot and fire upon its origin," the commander ordered.

The weapon officer complied. The shot left the Star Destroyer and flew unhindered out into space, disappearing in the distance.

"Adjust a quarter degree to the right and fire again." Still nothing. "Another quarter degree - fire." Nothing. "Adjust a half degree to the left and a quarter down. Fire."

"Sir, there's noth-" the officer wisely shut his mouth as he and the rest of the bridge watched a TIE interceptor appear briefly before their eyes as the last turbo laser scorched across its right wing, momentarily shorting out its cloaking device. The game of peek-a-boo lasted only for an instant and the TIE was invisible again.

"Fire a laser spread on that location," the commander ordered, but the weapons officer was one step ahead of his commander. This time the TIE Interceptor remained visible as the energy bolts flew around it, permanently disabling its shields, sensors, engines, and cloaking device.

"NOW see if you can hit it," the commander said, a hint of sarcasm creeping into his voice.

"Yes, sir!" The TIE Interceptor, Jedi pilot and all, was blown from the sky as a turbo laser lanced into its central pod.

Vince watched the final few moments of the encounter in horror. "Guys!" he shouted at the Jedi pilots, many of whom were barely in their teens and, in Vince's thinking, had no business in battle. "You have to keep moving! Even though they can't see you, they can still track your firing patter. Even a blind mouse can find the cheese, but not if the cheese is moving!"

Vince imagined the invisible Interceptors scrambling as the lucky Star Destroyer fired several more laser spreads across the area that had produced the other phantom turbo lasers. It got no more hits, but it transmitted its success to the rest of the Imperial capitol ships. Soon the battle area was filled with random laser fire in the slim hope that one of them might find one of the invisible ships.

Vince watched as the Jedi pilots tried to fire on the TIE fighters while on the move and sighed as the shots did not come anywhere near the speedy TIE's. When the Jedi did not have to fly their ships and were able to concentrate solely on their targets, their aim was so accurate it was creepy, but now the haphazard shots were almost as random as the ones coming from the Star Destroyers.

"Guys," Vince now said to his two wingmen, "I guess it's up to us."

"Roger that big buddy," Bep replied.

"I was waiting for you to say that," Jon replied. The ace pilot had test flown his new M-wing before but had not tested it in battle yet. He stretched the ship's legs now, accelerating to very dangerous speeds right at a collection of TIE's. The Imperial ships scattered, and Jon decelerated smoothly, locked his sights on one of the dodging ships, and opened up on it. He did not bother to confirm his kill as he looped away from the scene, accelerating in dramatic fashion.

Jon was amazed at how smoothly his ship handled. It accelerated and turned with out the slightest shudder or vibration. Though Vince and Bep had been great designers and had spent long hours building the W-wings, they just did not have the proper hardware to go with their ideas. The VCY had top of the line everything and Jon's ship was suped up beyond belief.

The M-wing found a new target quickly, and Jon tested his old fighting reflexes, hanging on to the ship for a while before firing. The desperate TIE pilot in the lead realized instantly that he would not be able to shake the tight tale, but his worry vanished when he saw three TIE's latch on to Jon's tail.

Jon's ship sensed the power surge in his three tails right before they fired. He yanked his ship into a 270-degree loop while corkscrewing 180. The three tails were too stunned to check their trigger fingers and each ship sent laser fire into their companion in the lead. The pilots watched in horror as their shots killed one of their own ships, and then tried to find the elusive M-wing.

Jon came down from above, blowing away all three ships in a single pass. He yanked on his stick, flipping 90 degrees in the opposite direction, just skimming over the explosions of his enemies. A stupid TIE pilot had momentarily forgotten where he was as he watched Jon's maneuvers in awe and got to experience the young pilot's skill first hand.

Vince and Bep faired just as well, handling every TIE they encountered. The Jedi pilots had wisely turned their attention toward the much bigger Star Destroyers and were finding you did not need to be nearly as accurate to hit the 1.6-kilometer long ships.

Still, the battle was not going well. The Imperial fighters were quickly diminishing under the unerring guns of the 185th, but the freighters were not fairing much better. The rebels had only lost seven ships total, including the V-38 that had been taken out, but a lot of the trade ships were damaged.

The Imperial ships were listing badly also, but they still needed the knock out punch, and the rebels were hesitant to deliver it, knowing it would cause many more loses on their side. This was the moment that the eight Star Destroyers from the VCY decided to drop in.

Han immediately called a strategic retreat, recognizing the new ships as allies. Farion Plebotius did not know a whole lot about warfare, but he understood the scene in front of him clearly enough. He outnumbered the enemies two to one, and all of his ships were fresh.

The chief engineer started by ordering his ships to lay down cover fire for the retreating freighters. The cover fire quickly turned into an all out offensive assault. The dreadnoughts gave way first. The smaller trade ships had picked at them continuously, and now the much more powerful ships ripped them apart at the seams.

The two remaining Star Destroyers tried a meager retreat but only turned halfway before mobility was stolen from them by the relentless reinforcements. They too quickly dissolved into pockmarked flame and scorched metal. The few TIE's had no where to go without their hyperspace mother ships, and quickly surrendered. The rebels gladly accepted the free ships and the entire group retired to the Torenick moon.

Thomas and Mara had watched the entire battle from their position on the moon. "Still think it was overkill?" Thomas asked.

Mara did not reply, but wondered what the men's morale was like now. Six of the traders had died and most of their ships had sustained some sort of damage. "How much time do we have?"

"None," Thomas responded. "I'd like the men to watch the senate proceedings so they know what is really going on and then we go to Coruscant."

"You want to fight Sanson at Coruscant?!" Mara asked incredulously.

"Better we fight on the field of our choosing than hers," Thomas countered. "Don't worry," Thomas smiled at her, "we'll win."

"We have to," Mara said under her breath.

***

Snotzenexer's armed entourage made a stop at one of the branches of the Coruscant Holocasting Company.

Snotzenexer and his wife had been released by the medical facility into the care of the palace guards. The doctors were at a loss. There obviously had to be an investigation into what had happen, and the fact that only two people survived the catastrophe in the senate did not set well for the ruling family. The planet city had always been run by the senate, and it was no longer there to give guidance.

The palace guards quickly stepped into the picture. They promised the doctors that Snotzenexer and Sanson would be kept under strict guard until such time that an investigation could be conducted or accusations could be made. The ideas were ridiculous. There was no one left to conduct an investigation and no one left to make accusations. As a result, the doctors were glad to relieve themselves of the burden of responsibility by handing over Snotzenexer and Sanson to the palace guard.

Like a tornic with its head cut off, the planet had no idea what to do. And similarly to the beheaded fowl, it was trying to run everywhere at once. Before it could begin to ask questions, Coruscant had to find an audience to receive those questions.

Attendance at regular senate sessions was rarely one hundred percent, but because of the importance of this fateful one, almost no one had been absent. Because of this, the public was at a loss to find anyone. Soon, two or three aids or secretaries who had been sick or late to the general assembly were found and nearly questioned to death. The aids were young aspiring minds and lacked both the experience and poise to handle such harassment by the press.

A few nearby planets went so far as to send immediate senatorial replacements as soon as the fatality reports came in. These ambitious planets thought that by being the first to initiate a new senate, their senators would be prominent members of the new regime. So eager to throw in new senators were these planets, that they often failed to tell the replacement senators why the current senator needed replacing.

After the media vultures were finished feeding on the few aids and secretaries, having found no real meat to sink their beaks in, they pounced on the new arriving senators. In the media's typical stupid fashion, they began to grille these new senators about the recent happenings and if they knew what was going on, as if these people from planets several systems away, some of whom had not even seen the short broadcast of the senate disaster, would know more about the event than the people attached to the company that had been responsible for airing the broadcast.

This little piece of insight failed to dawn on any of the reporters and their incessant questions forced the new arrivals back into their ships and some back to their home planets. The media began to roam again. Like prospectors on a new planet, they knew gold was close by, and the first one to find it was going to be rich.

Instead of the roaming reporters, it was a stationary anchorman that would cash in. Snotzenexer stepped out of the palace transport in front of the small broadcast building escorted by two palace guards. The guards were all former Imperials, and while they outwardly pretended that Snotzenexer was in custody, the president was the one giving out the orders.

Any security measure the broadcast building might have had in place for normal intruders fell pathetically away in front of Snotzenexer and his escorts. Word of the new arrivals did not travel as fast as the arrivals themselves, and the first report the producer of the broadcast station had that the president was there was when Snotzenexer strolled on to the set.

The building was in the process of a live broadcast, with the anchorman in the middle of commenting over yet another replay of the abbreviated senate broadcast. The last camera had malfunctioned a little less than a minute into the attack, before the real carnage had taken place, and all anyone could do was speculate. The anchorman was in the process of doing that now when he began receiving dramatic gestures from his producer.

Five seconds later, Snotzenexer walked right up to the startled newsman, and took a seat behind the desk. The anchorman was too startled to give an appropriate introduction for his visitor. Everyone had assumed Snotzenexer was dead. They had no real reason to believe otherwise. The last words he had said before the cameras had gone out proclaimed that the accusations against him were false and that they were under attack.

Without really reasoning it out, everyone had assumed the catastrophe to be the actions of this unknown third party. The accusations against Snotzenexer seemed unimportant in light of his death, and his claims that they were untrue were easily believable.

Now Snotzenexer sat in front of a live camera that was not subject to vexon gas and would continue to operate without interruption. "Citizens of Coruscant and the Republic," he started in a stately, yet injured voice. His face showed small burn marks that his gas mask had not protected him from and his hair seem oddly bleached. "We are under attack by a rebel force. As you all remember, I have been the target of personal attacks several times, both physical and in the tabloids."

His words had been chosen carefully. The physical attacks referred to the time when Luke and then Trince had stormed the palace in an attempt to confront him. Both attacks, though different in nature, had resulted in deaths. The second attacks had come more recently and Snotzenexer reminded his audience that they had started in a tabloid publication.

"Now these rebels have taken their treason to the next level and have attacked the very foundation of our government. This attempt to throw the Republic into anarchy will not succeed. I will not allow it to succeed!" Snotzenexer did not have to worry about his acting ability during this portion of his speech. He really was angry.

"Even now I am strengthening our borders to protect against another such attack. You will notice an increase in armed guards around the palace and in main parts of our great planet. These are not actions I enjoy taking, but they are necessary until we can end this threat to our safety and stability.

"There will be an increase in space traffic security as well. I advise no one to leave the planet unless absolutely necessary. My best advice to give to you is to stay in your homes and not to believe the rebellious propaganda that will be flooded to you through the media."

Snotzenexer paused, trying to remember if there was anything else to add. The anchorman took this break to try to initiate an interview, as if this surprise visit had been planned. "President, do you intend to institute a marshal law?"

Snotzenexer turned unexpectedly toward the voice, as if forgetting there was anyone else present. The cameraman too swung his device at his normal target in surprise before quickly expanding his lens to include both men.

Snotzenexer shrugged his shoulders, thinking he would go along with this format for a while. "Not marshal law," he corrected. "Marshal law is used to restrict the actions of the public to promote security. I wish only to protect the public, not from itself, but from the forces at large that wish to destroy their security. I will enforce no curfew and will not restrict travel, other than possibly encumbering it with increased security."

"Do you know the identity of these attackers?"

Snotzenexer briefly thought about dropping a few names, but did not. "Only that they are responsible for the many and varied reports that accuse me of every atrocity imaginable. The idea that I could have somehow orchestrated the natural disasters I'm being accused of is so preposterous, it's not even worth mentioning."

The anchorman had seen the reports and knew they were based on very solid facts and were not just the musings of a tabloid. He almost mentioned this, but thought better of it. This slight pause on his part gave Snotzenexer a good chance to leave. The president began to rise, and the anchorman grasped at the only question that came to his jumbled brain. "What of the accusations against your wife?"

Snotzenexer had now definitely decided this interview was over now. "Admiral Sanson is aboard her flagship and is organizing the planetary defenses as we speak. She also deeply resents the accusations that have been made against her, and I stand beside her and against those that believe otherwise. Now I must be going."

As quickly as he arrived on the live set, he left. The flustered anchorman was now the only one left behind the desk with all eyes focused on him. He went back to the first rule of journalism: when in doubt, plug the station. "That was President Snotzenexer live here in the studio. You are watching CHC, your best source for continual live coverage of this morni-"

Snotzenexer got back into the palace transport that had waited for him outside the small broadcast building and was soon traveling back to the palace. He had put the request out for hundreds of Imperial guards and several dozen of them were stationed around the palace to insure his security. As his transport settled onto the roof of the palace, he could see his men far below, already fighting a small crowd of a few thousand that had gathered for answers.

The media had been caught off guard by Snotzenexer's sudden appearance. They had been skirting real work, hoping to turn up an eyewitness or two that could give them the whole story at once. They had been looking for a vein of gold on the surface, a prospector's dream. Now that one of their own had stumbled upon such a vein - and Snotzenexer was truly a mother load - they all realized that if they wanted to get some for themselves, they would have to dig.

Not only did they need to find out what had happened during the senate session that had killed every senator save the president and his wife, but now they had direction from the president that there was a rebel faction at work. On top of all that, they still had the accusations against Snotzenexer that, despite his denial, still held water.

It took a while for the process to get moving, but once the gears began to turn, the vast media network quickly began to earn their paychecks. They scoured the disaster sight with a fine comb, going so far as to root through the remains as medics were removing the deceased. They interviewed senate chamber cooks, janitors, gardeners, maintenance people, and anyone they could find near the site.

At the same time, they investigated the TBC. When had the reports started? Who was publishing them? What was going on at Torenick? There was a sketchy report that Torenick was under Trade Federation sanctions, was that true? Very slowly, the media began to put together all of the pieces, and they were slowly releasing their findings to the public.

***

Thomas and the rebels did not have the luxury of operating slowly. The traders had gathered together on the moon, dejected and defeated. Even though they had emerged victorious, several of them had died. While this was inevitable for war, and the losses they took were very minor, it was a far cry from the labor strike they initially thought they were going to be a part of.

Thomas tried to bolster their confidence and conviction by showing them the disastrous events of the senate session. The footage showed little, but the reports that followed explained how the entire senate had been eliminated. This did not help the traders. Unlike Han, Thomas did not understand the mindset of the people he had employed. They were not patriots. They did not care who pounded the gavel in the senate, whether it was Palpatine, Leia, or Snotzenexer, just so long as they were free to do as they wanted and could earn a lifestyle.

Thomas feared they would walk out on him. Then they saw Snotzenexer's message. In it he accused the rebels of murdering the senators. In it he claimed the accusations made against him by the rebels were lies. In it he proclaimed that he would restrict space travel with increased security. In it he attacked each one of the traders by offending their character. Snotzenexer had called them murderers and liars.

Not half an hour later, the eight Star Destroyers were loaded down with fighters and freighters speeding through hyperspace toward Coruscant on an expedited route invented by Anakin. In the ship commander's ready room, on one of the eight Star Destroyers deemed the flagship, the minds of the New Rebellion, as they called themselves, were gathered.

Thomas sat at the head of the table. To his left sat Wedge, Perry, and Leia. To his right sat Mara, Han, and Lando. Lando was not exactly sure why he had been invited. Mara looked at the meeting like it was a waste of time. She liked to fly and live by the seat of her pants, and having tolerated all of Thomas' in-depth planning up to this point, she could barely restrain herself this close to the end.

Thomas launched into his speech as soon as everyone was seated. "We will drop out of hyperspace well short of the Coruscant system, about 10 minutes in hyperspace from the capitol." The table had a central holostrater and Thomas used it to pull up a blank space scene. "I'm pretty confident that Sanson will send a large portion of her fleet, herself included, to Torenick once she hears of our victory. They will use the standard route. We will set up inside that route."

Thomas illustrated a "U" in space. "These Star Destroyers have interdiction capability, and with it, we can yank her fleet out of hyperspace and into our trap. We will have ships directly ahead and on both sides. We also will place ships above and below." He drew a second "U" on a perpendicular plane to the first one, so the trapping ships looked like a bowl in three-dimensional space. "Finally we will have ships behind." Thomas placed a dot along the central axis of the bowl some distance from the base of the horizontal U's.

"Admiral Antilles, Captain Tremon, and myself have the most experience commanding capitol vessels and will lead the Star Destroyers. I will take four in the front position and Wedge and Perry will take two each on the side positions. President Loyran has supplied us with several dozen of his test pilots who are capable of flying the TIE fighters that came with our stolen merchandise. Plus each Star Destroyer group will have a small compliment of trade ships.

"The bulk of the freighters will be above and below. Star Destroyers were poorly designed for a battle in three dimensional space, and the hit and run tactics of the smaller trade ships will best be applied in the areas not easily reachable by the forward weapons on the Imperial ships. I've spoken with Han about this and I would like him and Lando to lead these two groups. I feel that you two have the best relationships with these men, and they will listen to you."

Thomas looked at Lando for a reaction, and the gambler nodded his head. How could he say no?

"This leaves us with the ships in the rear. There is a small nebula in which they shall hide until the last of Sanson's fleet is pulled out of hyperspace. They shall then close off the easy retreat and assault from behind. I am going to put the V-38's in this group, and several of the better freighters. Mara," Thomas said, turning expectantly toward the former Imperial assassin, "I was hoping that-"

"What about Skywalker?" Mara retorted, thinking the former commander should be in this meeting.

"He will be in your group, but as the V-38's commander, not that section of the fleet's commander. After the first few minutes, the invisible TIE's will be mixed into the fight, and not in communication with the rear part of the fleet. Besides, your ship has the ability to be cloaked and you have the ability to fly it as such."

"I can't say no, can I?" Mara asked, kind of liking the idea of being placed above Luke in the chain of command, though still apprehensive.

Thomas took that answer as a yes and moved on to the rest of the battle discussion. Mara walked out of the meeting a few minutes later with a more confident attitude. They would put up a very good fight. Depending on how many ships Sanson brought with her, the Republic Admiral could have her hands full.

Mara was thinking about the upcoming battle and not really paying attention to where she was walking. Her wandering brought her eventually to the large hangar on the flagship. Here another collection of minds was gathered, though one would hardly recognize it as such.

Farion Plebotius, the VCY's chief engineer was giving an eager audience a tour of the prototype ships he had designed and brought along with the stolen Star Destroyers. Luke and Anakin were following closely behind the engineer, looking for ships they could fly, for neither had their customary fighters with them. Vince, Bep, and Jon watched as interested connoisseurs and fellow designers, thinking they might be able to steal some ideas for W-wing upgrades. Lastly, Eran followed at a distance. The world of a fighter pilot was very new to him. He fought his battles with guns and explosives and, more recently, lightsabers.

Mara walked up to the group and sidled up next to Eran, wondering what this man's motivation was. She had heard the story of his involvement and knew he could be trusted. She had done far worse things, knowing they were bad when she had done them. Eran had a much cleaner conscious and genuinely wanted to help.

"This is the latest targeting ship I've designed," Farion said, in the middle of his tour. "Every year Vario holds pilot contests and the target course is the most prestigious event. There are plenty of pilots who can weave their way through an obstacle course in record time, but to be able to operate the weapons system at the same time and hit numerous targets along the way takes true skill."

Farion was preaching to the choir now. Vince, Bep, and especially Jon were the best in that field. Vince had told Wedge and Thomas that the main problem with the young Jedi in the V-38's was they could not fly and shoot at the same time. They could do one or the other with incredible skill, but it took more than Jedi concentration to combine the two. Thomas' answer was to put Luke in command of group. Luke had learned to fly before learning the Force, which had then only augmented his skill.

"Because of the event's popularity," Farion went on," I was asked to design a ship for the sole purpose of competing in that event." He motioned to the ship. "I call it the Sting Ray."

"Is it ready for battle?" Luke asked, thinking he had found his ship.

"I wouldn't have brought it with me if it wasn't," Farion replied. "I will tell you that it has very little shielding and no torpedoes. Like I said, it was built for only one reason."

Luke smiled. "It should fit right in with the V-38's."

"It doesn't have a cloaking device," Farion countered. "And I don't think it could support one."

"It won't need it," Luke kept his grin.

"I assure you," Farion continued, not catching on, "it has a considerable power supply and will show up clearly on radar."

"Trust me."

Mara decided to put an end to this game. "You forget," she spoke up from the back, "that you are talking with a Jedi Master."

Farion looked inquisitively at Mara and then back at Luke. The Jedi Master was still smiling. Did they mean he could hide a ship's presence with the Force? Farion shrugged, ignoring it and moving on.

"This next ship was ordered by a Varion based shipping company, though since the Trade Federation started, that company has gone bankrupt leaving me without a buyer for it. They were sick of pirates and wanted an escort fighter that could fly beside their valuable shipments. This is what I designed."

The fighter, if you could call it that, was massive. It was triangular in shape, sloping up into an elevated cockpit, almost looking like a miniature Star Destroyer. It bristled with laser cannons and torpedo tubes. The shield emitters were the largest any of the experienced pilots had ever seen on a ship of its size, and the twin fusion engines were as massive as a normal fighter all by themselves.

"Pretty sluggish, I bet," Anakin said, eyeing up the ship.

"You have no idea," Farion replied, not proud of the fact. "I got a chance to show the buyers the ship right before the business went under and they said they wanted a much more dexterous ship. I just laughed. You can't have both, at least not in the extreme like they wanted."

Vince nodded. The ship he was looking at had easily twice the armament of his W-wing, and Vince knew his fighter was the heaviest armed in the Republic fleet. Vince had to cut several corners and invent new engine philosophies along the way in order to make the W-wing as agile as it was. To get even half that mobility into a ship as large as the one he was looking at now would be impossible.

Farion took notice at Anakin's interest in the fighter. "I suppose you feel you could get it to turn flips as tight as an A-wing?" he asked sarcastically.

"Tighter," Anakin said, starting to walk around the ship. "Does it have a name?"

Farion shook his head. "The extinct company was to give it one."

"How about V-wing?" Anakin asked.

"What is your hang-up with naming ships after letters?" Farion blurted, though looking at the triangular ship, it was a good name.

"What about you?" Mara asked Eran quietly as they moved on to the next ship. "Have you picked out one that you like yet?"

"What, who, me?" Eran turned to Mara. "No, I don't fly."

This came as a great shock to Mara, for some reason. "You don't fly? I thought all you cocky, independent men were ace pilots. Isn't that how you pick up the women?"

Eran did not know how serious Mara was being. "I can fly a ship, but I've never had the need to fly a fighter. I wasn't part of any type of military. I was a secret agent that specialized in complicated insertion assignments."

Mara nodded. Her tutelage under the Emperor had been much the same and she had not really learned to fly until she had hooked up with Karde. "So what are you going to do when we get to show time?"

Eran assumed she was referring to the upcoming battle. "I haven't figure that out yet."

Eran intrigued her. "Why don't you come with me. Ra'tok and I could use a little company. Besides, you might learn something."

Eran nodded, having no other response prepared for the unusual woman. Mara had seen enough of the fighters and knew that end of the fight would be well handled by those present. Instead, she went off to find Ra'tok and see what kind of shape her ship was in.

Chapter 20 "Strategic Withdrawal"

It was a three-way toss up which way the Coruscant media would go with the story.

First you had the information coming from the TBC. There was a lot of evidence supporting the claim that Snotzenexer and Sanson were Imperials intent on returning the government to a Palpatine-Era and guilty of heinous crimes. The media could decide to dig into the evidence the TBC provided and then go searching for more, proving to themselves and the general public that Snotzenexer was evil.

On the other hand, the media had been in bed with the ruling family for the past seven months, and it made more sense for them to embrace the president's recent live comments and seek out the rebel faction. They would start with the TBC, trying to obtain the names of Leia and Mara, easily labeling them as enemies of the Republic.

The third route available to the media was by far the most professional, but was rarely chosen. The mass of reporters could attack this story without any preconceived notion of who was right and who was wrong. They could be totally open to the facts, letting their investigations reveal the truth with out being swayed by the propaganda around them.

For some insane reason, this third option was the one chosen. Common sense rarely had any say in Coruscant journalism. The money lay in scare tactics and scandals. The public was drawn to gory details and heroic triumphs. Plain facts never made the headlines - they just were not interesting.

On this occasion, the fraternity of journalists seemed to come to a common understanding. This was far too important to worry about who got the coverage rights, or who got the best ratings. With the senate destroyed and all sense of government with it, the media was in charge of the truth. It was a very serious responsibility, and almost everyone treated it as such. With such conviction, the answers nearly jumped out at them once they started to ask questions.

A maintenance man two months earlier at Snotzenexer's request had installed the tanks under the senate chamber that had contained the vexon gas. The maintenance man had not known what was in the tanks, but he knew it had to be important the way Snotzenexer had talked to him.

More and more injured patients from the scrimmage were being found to have traces of prolan gas in their blood. On one of the Calamarian Cruisers that had survived, the tanks of that gas were also found. The shipment records of prolanstina from the few cultivating fields that grew the bacteria correlated in volume to the amount of gas presumably used in the scrimmage.

The reporters and journalists began to dig into the past also. They remembered Snotzenexer's involvement in the destruction of Custom Shields Galactica and how he had used Republic ships to protect his own investment. They looked into some of his more curious bank dealings in the Varion system. Rumors of a merger between the VIB and the CGB began to float around.

Snotzenexer was quickly loosing credibility, and watching from a palace window, the president could tell he would not regain it. The crowd surrounding the palace was growing every hour. Tens of thousands of people crowded the palace park and overflowed into nearby buildings and parking platforms. The people were not only spread out below Snotzenexer's elevated perch, but across from it as well. The windows of the surrounding buildings were bursting with people shouting and screaming.

No actual words could be heard from the public chaos, but their mood was obvious. Snotzenexer had the palace defenses in place and felt safe enough. There was a very heavy particle shield that would keep even the heavy pressing of the throng away from the palace walls. Snotzenexer watched with some delight as dozens of protesters pressed against the shield and were crushed by the thousands behind them.

The bodies began to pile up quickly along the crowd's inner radius, and like the ocean during a receding tide, the crowd slowly pulled back. A sort of quiet fell on the people when they realized what they had done, yet somehow they managed to blame the deaths of the several dozen protesters on Snotzenexer and it only fueled their anger.

Instead of attacking the impenetrable shield as a group, individuals along the front line rushed the palace. They stopped short of the shield, hurling rocks and sticks high into the air as if they could somehow exceed the height of the domed shield. Snotzenexer only laughed as he watched some of the better-thrown rocks bounce hard off the shield and fly back into the vulnerable crowd.

The rock throwing ended after its futility was realized. It was quickly replaced with blaster fire. Dozens and then hundreds of blasters came alive, peppering the shield with laser fire. Again, the huge shield proved more than effective against the small weapons, and the shots deflected into the sky, a few striking the surrounding buildings.

Though Snotzenexer felt comfortable behind his shield, he also realized that it was not indestructible. Just like the crowd had upgraded from rocks to blasters in a matter of minutes, it would not take long for them to climb higher in the scale of destructive weapons. The president was being fired upon by almost a thousand of his own citizens and felt he had the right defend himself.

Snotzenexer raised a com unit to his face. "Fire randomly into the crowd," he said slowly.

Almost three dozen Imperial palace guards stationed all around the base of the building inside the shield opened fire into the crowd. It was impossible to miss, and each shot resulted in a casualty. Each guard only fired three times and there were a hundred corresponding dead protesters.

Instead of restraining the crowd, this show of deadly force only infuriated them more. Twice as many blasters as before fired, all of them aimed at the guards standing around the base of the palace. With so many bolts aimed at the same portions of the shield, a few managed to leak through. The guards retaliated with renewed force. This time, a dozen turbo lasers mounted on the exterior of the palace joined the barrage.

A minute later, three guards had been hit, though none of them badly wounded, and one thousand protesters had died. On impact the turbo lasers incinerated anything within a three-meter radius, and in this densely packed crowd, that translated to over 20 people.

The crowd attempted to scatter. The attempt only resulted in another 500 deaths. The outside perimeter of the crowd was growing constantly, sealing everyone in against the shield of the palace. The crowd realized this slowly as they were trampling their own neighbors. During the mass confusion, the crowd had ceased firing on the palace. As a result, the palace had ceased firing on the crowd.

This unofficial agreement between both parties was slowly being realized by the thousands of scared citizens. The cease fire arrangement was further emphasized when a few less wise individuals continued to fire on the palace. Concentrated turbo lasers on the lone marksman answered these scattered attacks. Not only was the attacker disintegrated, so were two dozen people around him.

The crowd was quickly putting an end to its attacks, viciously pummeling anyone near them who raised a blaster toward the shield. Everyone realized that if the guy standing next to them fired on the palace, they would be dead within seconds.

A deathly silence soon fell over the immense crowd. No one wanted to be there anymore, but the sheer size of the crowd prevented any type of evacuation. Both sides just waited for something to change.

That something came briefly as a few desperate citizens had climbed into their ships and commenced attack runs on the palace. These were not military ships, and the weapons were pathetic. The shield repelled all attacks easily, and the palace then returned fire in dramatic fashion. The ships burst into far more dramatic fireballs then they would have in the vacuum of space, and then showered the crowd below with deadly shrapnel.

As soon as the most recent of bad ideas was over, the crowd once again fell into an eerie calm, waiting for some dramatic change of events.

***

Sanson did not know what was going on below on the planet. She was too concerned with the reports she was getting from Torenick - or the lack of such reports.

The admiral could not get in touch with any of the ships she had sent to the rebellious planet. Their com circuits were not even returning her hyperspace pings. Either the ships had suffered massive power failures, or they had been destroyed.

Another very disturbing piece of information came from the Star Destroyer Sanson had sent to the Varion system. A very hesitant commander had told her that the eight Star Destroyers had gone into hyperspace to flush the radiation from their engines and had not returned. He explained that they had tried to circumvent the bridge lockout codes and force-fire the hyperspace engines to test them.

Sanson knew that this would cause a massive radiation leak and saw the rebel's trick quite easily. She had asked her commander why the VCY had continued to force fire all eight of the hyperdrives after each one had failed. Sanson could see how one of the ships could have undergone a radiation leak, but after that one had failed, she knew President Loyran would not have allowed his people to then do the same thing to the remaining seven ships.

Sanson had presented this simple reasoning to her commander, and he had been unable to respond. She had then ordered the nearest security officer on board of the Varion Star Destroyer to kill the stupid commander.

Sanson had left the lone Star Destroyer in the Varion system on the off chance that some of the rebels might return. The rebels now had eight Star Destroyers, and by now several dozen of the trade ships must have arrived at Torenick's moon. Sanson knew that if she allowed the rebels to gather their fleet together and then go into hiding, they would be very formidable.

In the past, the group of rebels had managed to take out two Death Stars with much less firepower than they had now. Sanson also knew that the Imperials in those two earlier battles had much more firepower than she had now.

The Republic had almost 40 capitol ships in the vicinity of Coruscant after loosing several ships during the scrimmage. Sanson could not gather even half of that amount right now. Most of the military personnel had been given leave so they could be interviewed for the trial that had taken place yesterday. Only a skeleton crew had been left in orbit above Coruscant, manning only about 15 ships. Almost half of those ships were staffed with genuine Republic officers, leaving Sanson with only eight Star Destroyers, including her Super Star Destroyer, the Dark Fist.

Sanson did not know if she could trust the other ships. She knew they would obey her command. She had given countless speeches to the press and her fellow officers explaining the need to no longer look at her ships as Imperial ships. They were all part of the same Republic.

Before, the Republic old-timers had simply nodded at these comments, not taking them to heart. But now, after the scrimmage, they were ready to show the rest of the galaxy that the Republic officers were not the grudge-holding men they had appeared to be during the scrimmage.

Sanson had done a good job of shielding the military from the media coming both from Torenick and from Coruscant. She knew they would follow her willingly into battle against an evil foe, but Sanson also knew she might not find that foe. If she brought all these ships to Torenick, they would probably spend their time, picking off individual trade ships as they arrived at the moon.

Sanson would also have to leave some ships around the planet to enforce the illegal trade embargo and take some to hunt down the rest of the rebels. She knew the Republic officers would loose faith in her professed conversion pretty quick under those circumstances.

While Sanson did not know if she could trust the Republic officers, she also did not think she had a choice. She had only had eight of her own ships, and even though the eight-kilometer long Dark Fist was easily the equivalent of five of the smaller Imperial class Star Destroyers, by the time she got her ships to Torenick the rebels would have gathered most, if not all, of the over 130 trade ships they had summoned. Along with their eight stolen Star Destroyers, the fight would be more than fair.

Sanson had almost a dozen more Star Destroyers undergoing repairs in the Coruscant Shipyards, but it would take the better part of a week to find the men to staff them. By that time the rebels would have gone into hiding and she would have lost her opportunity.

There was not much of a choice left when Sanson weighed all the options. She had to take what she had around the planet and attack the rebels at Torenick. As Sanson relayed her orders to the rest of the orbiting fleet, she tried to think about her opponents' strategy plans. Wedge Antilles and Perry Tremon were members of this New Rebellion. Looking at the volumes of information on Antilles and the few tid bits on Tremon, Sanson knew she would not be able to predict the men. They were far too experienced and clever to give away their strategies or secrets.

The only weakness Sanson could hope for would be in the collection of trade ships. Han Solo had to be the common link, and the female admiral doubted the former smuggler could still have a significant tie with his old associates. If she could dishearten the traders, she might initiate a mass retreat, leaving only the Star Destroyers. Sanson doubted her Republic officers would have a hard time firing on them.

It took a few minutes to coordinate the fleet of fifteen capitol ships, and half a dozen smaller carriers and frigates into hyperspace formation. Once assembled, Sanson gave the word, and the fleet stretched out of real space and snapped into hyperspace.

Sanson stood on her bridge, basking briefly in the slight rush she always felt when entering hyperspace before a battle. She knew that when they entered real space in a little over a day's time, they would be only seconds from battle. Sanson did not know if she could wait that long. The battle lust that normally churned so earnestly inside her had died down of late. The combination of military inactivity and the birth of her son and calmed her considerably. The scrimmage had done little for her, for she had taken a back seat to the action, even though she had directed it.

Now that battle lust was coming back to the surface. She absorbed this feeling for several minutes before turning to leave the bridge. She was just about to her office, when the bridge shook violently, nearly throwing her to the floor. Sanson grabbed hold of the railing surrounding the elevated command platform above the recessed bridge and looked around desperately for answers.

One look out the forward view screen told the admiral they were back in normal space, and true to her earlier thoughts, they were only seconds from battle. The Dark Fist was positioned in the center of the hyperspace formation, and Sanson looked past the rear ends of the ships in front of her to the few Star Destroyers that lay ahead facing the Coruscant fleet.

There were only four Star Destroyers ahead of them. Sanson quickly checked the radar and found the other four stationed two to either side of her fleet. Mixed among the Star Destroyers were dozens upon dozens of smaller ships. Sanson saw there were also a considerable number of freighters above and below her, as well as a small amount moving in behind.

The trap was perfectly executed. Laser fire rocked her ship from all sides as the ship's shields were slow in coming up. The shock of the interdiction field to the engines caused the delay in the shields, and the rebels took full advantage of it, doing considerable damage to the Coruscant fleet.

The fleet was not in a battle ready position, and only half of the ships were able to return fire without hitting one of their own. Sanson took one ten second look at the situation and knew the game was over. Like a grand master at holo chess, she could see dozens of moves into the future and knew she had lost.

There was no explainable way these ships could have gotten to this position so quickly. Over half of the trade ships were not even due at Torenick yet. Sanson had received word that the Star Destroyers had been stolen almost 24 hours ago, yet it was easily eight hours to get to Torenick from the Varion system, and then another 30 hours to Coruscant. Besides that, how had the rebels known Sanson would come after them this soon?

All of the questions that should have been racing through Sanson's mind were not. She saw no reason to search out the reason for the rebels' presence. Knowing how they got here in such number would not change anything, especially the out come of this fight.

Not only did Sanson recognize her loss here just out side of the Coruscant system, she realized this would also turn into defeat on a much grander scale when the rebels (what was left of them after the battle) continued on to Coruscant with no fleet protecting the planet filled with rebelling citizens.

Unlike many of her Imperial predecessors, Sanson was not stupid. She knew when it was time to retreat, and she was not too proud to do it. She had no illusions of being able to turn her entire fleet around, though. The ships were too tightly packed and under too much fire power to make any type of turn about. Besides, the interdiction field was still in place. No, the retreat Sanson was planning was on a much more personal level.

***

Wedge, Thomas, and Perry saw the game was over right away too. Unlike Sanson, though, they were concerned with more than just the outcome. The Imperial Admiral looked at the outcome as a win or a loss, caring for little else. The New Rebellion commanders tended to pay more attention to the casualties. They would win, but it would still be a major challenge to keep the casualties to a minimum.

"Thomas," Wedge said into his com as he looked at the captured fleet before him, "there are a lot of Calamarian Cruisers in that fleet."

"I see them," Thomas replied. "What do you think?"

"I think they are staffed with Republic loyals. I don't think the Imperials could have gained familiarity with the ships to fly them on their own. Besides, Sanson doesn't have enough personnel left to fly all the ships in front of us."

"I agree," Thomas replied. The former Imperial Captain flipped a switch to speak to all of his fleet commanders. "Focus all fire power on Imperial craft only."

Han and Lando received the order and relayed it to their ships above and below the Coruscant fleet. Thomas watched in respect as the trade ships sped down and up weaving through the stationary capitol ships as smoothly as if they were part of an enormous loom. During their passage through the Imperial ships, the freighters unleashed a tremendous amount of firepower, pummeling the Star Destroyers that were momentarily without shields.

As planned, the majority of the shots were aimed at turbo laser mounts and battery placements. Two of the eight Star Destroyers were left with 50% percent power after the first pass. One of the ships had their shields disabled for good, and had little hope for survival.

Not one of the freighters took a hit. The targeting systems of the fleet ships were still scrambled from the interdiction field and the attack was executed so perfectly, the ships literally did not know what had hit them.

After the first pass was completed, the rest of the ships closed in. Before the fleet could spread themselves into better battle position, Thomas, Wedge, and Perry tightened their hold on the ships, releasing volley after volley of turbo laser fire on the helpless Imperial ships.

Moving into position behind the fleet that had just dropped out of hyperspace, Mara, Luke, and a small group of freighters joined the fight. Leading the V-38's into the fray, Luke gave telepathic instructions to his students through the Force. Luke had heard the reports of how the Emperor had controlled his commanders during battle, making them operate more efficiently. He had also heard how Thrawn had used C'boath for the same purpose. Now, the galaxy's remaining Jedi Master did the same with his small collection of fighters. The V-38's moved into the stationary capitol ships, slipped beneath the recently raised shields, and began exacting sever damage on everything in their sights.

The 185th and Anakin did not want to be left out of the fun either, and accompanied by a couple dozen of the VCY's best test pilots, the fighters leaped from the belly of Thomas' Star Destroyer and dove into the fun. By now, several of the Star Destroyers and cruisers had emptied their holds and enemy fighters swarmed the close quarters between the compressed ships.

***

Sanson had not issued one command since dropping out of hyperspace and only watched the proceedings in silence. She was the fleet's admiral, but each ship had its own commander, including the one she was on. Without any commands from Sanson, each ship acted on its own, doing battle as it saw fit. The result was a very uncoordinated attack.

The sight was sickening to Sanson, but she had no motivation to rectify the situation. She knew that no matter what she did, she would still lose. It was not until she found a way out that she issued her first command.

The admiral sat in her command chair and activated her com unit. "Captain Pearson," she called out to the idiot commander of the Star Destroyer she wished to use. "Proceed at half thrusters along these coordinates." She entered the coordinates through the com.

"But, Admiral," Pearson replied - the famous last words of many an Imperial Captain - "that course will place my ship directly between two enemy ships and my shields are almost failing."

Sanson wished she could strangle the man. "Do you recognize those ships, Captain?" she asked, referring to the stolen Star Destroyers Pearson was worried about. "The one on the right is SD129A3. You know as well as I do that it has always had a sporadic port side lateral stabilizer. I need you to take out the starboard side of that ship. The power fluctuations from the resulting shortage combined with the faulty port side stabilizers should throw the ship violently to the left. Those two ships are flying too close together and the resulting collision should take them both out and leave you an avenue of escape."

The strategy was a total fabrication. Sanson had no idea what the serial number of the Star Destroyer in question was, and none of her ships had any problems with their lateral stabilizers. Pearson ate it up. "Yes, Admiral." He especially liked the escaping part.

Pearson moved his ship out of the protection offered by the fleet and crept toward the two enemy Star Destroyers. Perry Tremon was in command of the two ships in question and concentrated his firepower on the foolish ship.

The rest of the Imperials noticed the move and knew Pearson would not do something like that on his own. One by one they began to call into the Dark Fist for Sanson's orders.

"Admiral," the communications officer spoke up when he began receiving the calls, "the rest of the fleet would like to kno-" the officer paused as he turned around and saw that Sanson was no longer on the bridge.

The command shuttle left the back of the Super Star Destroyer like a rocket. Sanson used all of her flying skill to avoid an instant collision with a nearby Calamarian Cruiser and then dove around a speeding fighter, just avoiding a collision. Sanson caught a glimpse of the fighter as it passed beside and recognized the original design. She suffered for a brief moment of severe panic as the W-wing sped away from her. The ship easily took out three TIE fighters and then swung around the bottom of the Dark Fist and out of view. Sanson let out a long sigh and continued toward Pearson's doomed ship.

Vince had not even seen the command shuttle that flew past him within 20 meters. He was too intent on his three targets and six tails. He almost always fought in conjunction with Bep, but the two friends had been split up at the beginning of the fight, and had not seen each other since. Vince wasted the three ships in front of them when they tried a maneuver that stalled one of their engines, making that ship nearly collide with the other two ships. When the other two decelerated to avoid the collision, Vince made sure they did not get a chance to speed back up.

The W-wing took a couple hits from behind and Vince spun his ship under the huge Super Star Destroyer on his left. In the distance, under the vast ship that was now above him, Vince saw two small bursts of light that looked very similar to the three twisted wrecks he had just left behind. Another W-wing emerged between the ex-TIE's and Vince was glad to see his friend.

Bep had four tails of his own, and as the two friends passed within ten meters, they targeted each other's tails and reduced the ten enemy ships to three in a matter of two seconds. The remaining TIE's were a little confused as to which ship they had been chasing, and remembered just in time to watch the appropriate W-wing circle about and take them out.

Jon was on a mission. His M-wing was handling better than he could have ever hoped, but the lame pilot took little pleasure in destroying the dozens of enemy ships that flew into his scopes. Jon was busy buzzing bridges, looking for Captain Krychink. Seven months ago, when Jon had been shot down over Iom, Captain Krychink (Commander Krychink at the time) had been the Imperial who had cleverly defeated him.

Jon had aimed his W-wing right at the bridge of Krychink's Star Destroyer so the numerous tails the skilled pilot had acquired would fire on their own ship if they missed, which they had done with frightening regularity. Jon had made a last second maneuver to skirt around the bridge and emerged just behind the Star Destroyer. Krychink had timed a main thruster firing to correlate with the exact time Jon's ship flew in front of the engines. The resulting damage to the W-wing had crashed Jon's ship on Iom, and had put him in a wheelchair.

Jon had gotten a good look at Krychink's face during his daring maneuver seven months ago, and had recognized the Imperial as he had watched the scrimmage trial, which had taken place two days ago. The captain had been praised as a tactical genius, and while Jon knew there was some validity to that claim, Jon was sure the eclipse maneuver Krychink had used during the scrimmage was the brainchild of Sanson, or more likely Snotzenexer.

It was not until Jon blew past his sixth Star Destroyer bridge that he noticed his target. Krychink did not recognize the fighter that buzzed by the bridge, but smiled as he saw the half-dozen TIE's that hung close to Jon's tail. Krychink barely remembered the encounter he had had with Jon back in the Varion system and would not have recognized the young pilot even if the M-wing did not have a one-way glassine cockpit. Though he did not know who he was looking at, he realized it was one heck of a pilot.

Jon put his ship into a wide 270-degree turn and came right back at the main bridge. The turn was wide enough for the six tails to follow it, which was not an accident. The M-wing had incredible shields, and the two shots that were lucky enough to land on the back of Jon's ship as he turned did virtually no damage. Jon released two magnesium flares from the side of his ship that had been hit. The flares were magnesium oxygen tanks that burned bright and hot, great for redirecting torpedoes or for making it look like your ship has been hit.

Jon threw his ship into a hard corkscrew, still aimed right at the bridge. "Captain!" one of the bridge officers screamed. "It's been hit! It's going to hit us!"

"Full forward bridge deflectors!" Krychink commanded needlessly. The shield officer had already cranked the bridge shield strength well beyond maximum.

Jon knew that the bridge shield hugged the glassine viewports very tightly and yanked himself out of the corkscrew and up over the bridge just in front of the viewports. He was too focused in his task to take pleasure in the fact that Krychink dove clumsily over his chair in some feeble attempt to avoid the inevitable collision.

Jon's M-wing was not the ship that Krychink should have been worried about. The six tails were too occupied with the idea that they had actually done some damage to the elusive ship to realize their proximity to the bridge. When Jon brought his undamaged ship out of the corkscrew and flew just over the bridge, the tails were looking right at Krychink and his officers. The TIE pilots yanked their sticks in random directions to avoid the collision. As Jon had hoped, two of the ships collided with each other and plowed into the shield in a fiery explosion.

To its credit, the shield held, but Jon was remedying that situation above the bridge. The two shield generators stood out like water towers on top of the Star Destroyer, and Jon threw all of his ship's energy into a concentrated burst of firepower toward the base of one of the towers. Jon brought his ship to a near stand still as he stole all the power from his engines for the vicious attack. The experienced pilot was not worried about enemy fire for he knew his tails were spinning off in some random direction after their near miss with the bridge crew of the huge ship.

By throwing all of the shield's power into one component of the huge ship the system was overloaded. Combined with the two colliding TIE's and Jon's demolition work above, the shield control panel on the main bridge exploded in a shower of sparks and flame, killing the shield officer instantly and throwing him several meters back.

"What happened?!" Krychink screamed as he ran toward the forward section of the bridge to the burned out station. "Status!"

"Sir we have no forward shield strength! I repeat, we have zero shields!"

"You mean-" Krychink looked up slowly.

The M-wing was slowly lowering itself in front of the bridge. The Imperial Captain was standing two meters from the main viewport. The relatively small fighter looked enormous to the petrified captain as it slowly came into view. The forward barrel of the central laser canon was less than a meter from the thick glassine viewport and aimed directly at Krychink's chest.

The laser canon fired once. The energy bolt burned a perfect circle, four centimeters across, in the glassine before it tore a much larger hole through the captain's chest and exploded into the computer bank behind him. As the pressure inside the bridge was released through the tiny hole, the viewport began to crack in a massive spider web. The sound was sickening to hear for the bridge crew - like fingernails over slate. The cracks traversed the entire panel in a matter of seconds, spreading their hairline fingers all the way to the durasteel framework.

The viewport looked like it might hold, but the ship's dead captain was picked up by a gust of suction and hurled at the weakened glassine. Krychink was sliced apart as he passed through the viewport, blowing the entire three-meter pain out of the framework. As the rest of the bridge was evacuated in a heartbeat, Jon threw several more laser bolts into the bridge and left as a wave of flame chased the rest of the bridge crew out into space.

If any Imperials in the fleet survived this encounter, they would do well never to cross Jon Poncho again.

Chapter 21 "Coming Home"

Sanson stayed well inside Captain Pearson's shadow as the doomed Star Destroyer headed toward the two enemy ships. As commanded, Pearson emptied his laser batteries on the targeted ship. The starboard side was turned to a mesh by the concentrated fire, and the lateral stabilizers on the right side did misfire, but the port side stabilizers were fine, and easily compensated for the lack of starboard thrusters.

Pearson knew something was wrong when instead of the ship on the right veering sharply to the left and into the other Star Destroyer, it moved slowly to the right, increasing the gap between the two ships. Pearson was headed straight for that gap and knew he would never make it. Like a dumb Imperial, he tried, and his ship was reduced to a drifting hunk of charred metal as both New Rebellion ships tore into it from either side.

Unseen by either of the two enemy ships, Sanson's shuttle flew beneath Pearson's drifting ship and through the gap between the occupied Star Destroyers. Sanson was sure she had a clean getaway, but one ship had seen her.

***

Mara tried to organize her small band of ships at the back of the fleet, but it was hopeless. The majority of the group's firepower was tied into the V-38's, and Luke had taken those invisible ships into the fray. The rest of the ships were faced with looking at the rear thrusters of the Coruscant fleet, which did not offer very good targets. Each of the freighters took their own initiative, following the V-38's into the main battle.

Mara stayed behind for a short while, knowing that Thomas had wanted her to prevent any escape. Soon, it became obvious that nothing inside the New Rebellion's ring of death was going to escape and Mara served little purpose.

Mara looked to her side to see Ra'tok, taping away at the sensor controls, monitoring the battle from a distance. She looked over her shoulder and saw Eran looking very out of place. "So you can't fly, huh?" Mara asked.

Eran had never witnessed a space battle of this magnitude and was staring dumbly out the forward view screen. He barely registered Mara's question and nodded.

"Well, can you fire a laser turret?"

Eran looked at her, realizing that he was going to get a chance either way. "I can learn."

"Good. You and Ra'tok make your way to the turrets, I'm bringing us in." Mara's two helpers disappeared from sight as she accelerated the Jade's Fire toward the main fighting. Just before she plunged her ship through the perimeter, something in the Force tugged her in a different direction.

On impulse, Mara turned her ship in that direction and noticed a small speck leaving the central battle area. "And where are you going?" Mara asked the small ship quietly. None of the Imperial fighters had hyperspace capability and it was a long walk back to Coruscant in normal space.

As Mara contemplated that, she brought the small ship up on radar. "An Imperial shuttle craft," Mara said to herself, reading the screen's output. Mara could see the burning hulk of the Imperial ship still being fired upon by the two New Rebellion ships. "Abandoned ship, did we?" Mara was about to ignore the ship, but something in the Force kept tugging at her.

The shuttle was turning more toward Mara now, to get a good line on Coruscant. While the fighters did not have hyperspace engines, the Imperial shuttles did. Mara looked at the energy readings coming from the ship. "Powerful little shuttle." Then it clicked. Mara looked back at the main battle, seeing the Super Star Destroyer sitting right in the middle of the mess. "Sanson!" Mara hated that woman.

"Change of plans, guys," Mara said into the ship's intercom system. "We've got a runaway to catch."

Just as Mara began to alter her course, the command shuttle disappeared into hyperspace. Ra'tok and Eran showed up a minute later. Mara was speeding away from the main battle at top speed with nothing but empty space in front of her.

At first it looked like Mara was running from the fight, and while Eran might believe that, Ra'tok knew it could not be true. "Where are we going?" the Defel asked.

"I have to get out of the interdiction field," Mara replied. "Sanson is trying to escape back to Coruscant. If we don't stop her, she might get to Snotzenexer and we'll never see the two of them again."

Eran nodded in approval. Mara watched as a small red light on her flight panel blinked off. "Hold on." The ship leaped into hyperspace.

***

As the Imperial ships began to explode around them, it did not take much effort for the Calamarian Cruisers to realize they were not being targeted. At first, without any guidance from Sanson, each ship had gone its own way and lashed out at the nearest available target. Now, the Republic ships not being fired upon, realized that they were in no real danger, and were putting forth very little offensive effort. Something did not make sense.

Recently promoted Captain Archvin looked at the battle around him, wondering what the meaning of this was. Admiral Sanson had said they were jumping to track down the rebels responsible for the senate murders. Archvin had not even known the senate had been wiped out.

Then a few Star Destroyers and a bunch of freighters yanked them out of hyperspace barely ten minutes outside of Coruscant. It was obviously a trap, but the enemy was only concerned with the Imperial ships. This set off several mental alarms in the captain's head.

"Sir," the communications officer spoke up, "I have an incoming transmission from one of the enemy ships."

"On speaker," Archvin ordered.

"Commander Archvin," a familiar voice said, "this is Wedge Antilles."

"Admiral?!" the captain was shocked. That Wedge did not know about his promotion mattered very little to the captain. With the resignation and court-martial of the five Republic Captains after the scrimmage, there were several holes that needed to be filled. "Admiral Antilles, what in the Maw is going on?"

"I'm afraid you and the rest of the Republic have been duped by Snotzenexer and Sanson. I realize you have heard those claims before, and have no real reason to believe them now, but I implore you to stay out of this. If your ships do not fire on us, we will not fire on you. We are only interested in the Imperials."

"There are no more Imperials!" Archvin screamed. That was something that had been drilled into every Republic officer repeatedly after the scrimmage. "There are no more Imperials. We are all part of the same Republic!"

"Gene," Wedge said calmly, addressing the captain by his first name, "how long have we known each other? Fifteen, twenty years? I was the one who gave you your first three promotions. We played sabacc every other night for about ten years straight. You can trust me. Don't you think I would make absolutely sure of what I'm talking about before I went and did something this rash? Please, think about it."

Wedge closed the connection, but his voice hung in every bridge officer's ear. Archvin too was calmed by his former commanding officer's voice. Wedge Antilles was a man who was never surprised. Every time he stuck his neck out, it was for a good reason. He took nothing but calculated risks. In the long time Archvin had known Wedge, he had never seen the Admiral bluff away from the sabacc table. If Wedge really believed that Sanson was bad, then he had an awfully good reason for it.

"Stand down," Archvin said calmly to his weapons officer. He turned to the communications officer. "Forward Admiral Antilles' comments to the rest of OUR portion of the fleet and tell them we are standing down."

The communications officer had not yet made up his own mind what to think, but he carried out his orders. Within the next five minutes, every one of the Calamarian Cruisers stood down and recalled all their fighters. A few of the ships went so far as to leave the concentrated fleet to stand alongside Wedge, Thomas, and Perry.

***

Sanson was totally unprepared for the sight surrounding the palace. Hundreds of thousands of people swarmed around the base of the huge centerpiece of the city planet. For the size of the crowd, Sanson thought it looked very serene. That calm changed abruptly when the crowd saw Sanson's ship approaching.

Most of the people recognized it as the fleet's command shuttle, and they knew who had to be aboard. They already found out they could not touch Snotzenexer inside his protective shell, but Sanson was free game. Hundreds of blaster bolts shot up at the shuttle.

Sanson had not expected an attack and had not raised her shields since dropping out of hyperspace a few moments ago. Still, the small weapons fire, at such a great distance should have had no affect on the strong shuttle. The designers of the ship, however, had not expected it would ever undergo a concentrated attack made by nearly five hundred blasters at once.

The shuttle jerked violently as it lurched toward the small opening in the top of the domed palace shield. The shuttle suffered one last barrage before falling behind the protective shell around the palace. Sanson felt and heard several explosions tear through the rear of the ship, and the shuttle dropped like a stone for the last dozen meters to the palace's rooftop landing pad.

Sanson cursed violently. She wanted to have this shuttle available for her and her family to escape if their preplanned means failed. Now, she knew the shuttle would never enter hyperspace again, much less make it off the top of the palace.

Two guards ran to the shuttle to make sure their admiral was okay. Sanson stumbled from the ship before the guards could assist her. She was shaken up a bit, but she would be fine. She shoved away the men that tried to help her. "I'm fine. Where is my husband?"

Neither guard spoke but pointed to one of the turbo lifts that went down into the palace. Sanson walked quickly toward the indicated lift, knowing that it led straight to the palace's private quarters.

Sanson exited the lift a few moments later and saw her husband standing in front of the window staring down into the crowd. "Dear, we have to go now. We don't have much time."

Snotzenexer did not move. He did not even turn around to recognize his wife's presence. "Alex! We have to go NOW! Those people out there are going to tear this place apart if we stay any longer. Our fleet is being dismantled as we speak. We need to go."

The comment about the fleet was news to Snotzenexer, but seeing as how Sanson was supposed to be halfway to Torenick right now, the president kind of figured something was up.

Sanson was running out of patience. "What is wrong?! Why aren't you moving?!"

"I don't have David," Snotzenexer said quietly, still looking out the window.

"What?!" Sanson wanted to throw her husband out of his accursed window. "Where is my son?!"

"The nurse has him," Snotzenexer continued in his quiet, defeated voice. "She'll be along shortly."

"You didn't have him near you when this whole thing started?! What were you thi-" she stopped screaming at him as he slowly turned around.

Snotzenexer's face seemed as if he was about to burst into tears. "I wasn't thinking," he replied in a still quiet voice, though it was growing in volume. "I wasn't thinking. I'm an idiot, okay. I'm the biggest, blasted moron this universe has ever seen! Is that what you want to hear?! Is that what you want me to say? Huh? Do you think that if I own up to this mess that it will all go away? It won't! I screwed up, and now we are going to pay for it!"

Snotzenexer had never once yelled at his wife.

Now it was Sanson who looked close to tears. "I . . . I just want to know that our son is safe. I didn't mean that you . . . I mean that we . . ."

Snotzenexer's face fell. "I'm sorry, dear. David will be here shortly and then we can leave on our ship like we have planed."

Sanson shook her head. "The crowd will never let us leave."

"Your shuttle?" Snotzenexer asked, thinking he already knew the answer.

Sanson continued to shake her head. "It will never fly again."

Snotzenexer nodded, thinking things through. "I have another plan." He turned back to his window, reminding himself where his plans had gotten them so far. "A better plan."

Sanson wished she could turn back the clock and take back her words of a few minutes before. She knew that her husband was taking this failure very hard. Sanson was dealing with it much better. Seven months ago when they had decided to abandon their plans of returning the galaxy to an Imperial dictatorship, Sanson had lost her dreams of leading the most powerful fleet in galactic history and had become satisfied with simply growing old in the lap of luxury with her family.

Little of that dream had changed even now. The three of them would escape from Coruscant and flee to a small insignificant planet. Sanson had her mind set on Gensifery, a tropical planet she had attacked almost a year ago while under Tallon's command. Snotzenexer was partial to Naboo.

Snotzenexer's real dream, though, had been to remain the president of the greatest Republic ever created. For all of the people he killed, he still actually loved them. Or more accurately, he loved the praise they lavished upon him and the money they unwittingly gave him. He had assembled a powerbase in about eight months that exceeded ten times what the most successful men in history had taken their entire lives to produce. And now, in a heartbeat, it was all falling apart.

Snotzenexer was definitely taking this hard, but he would get over it. Sanson and Snotzenexer would have their appearances changed, of course, and would easily blend into any small community they moved to. A quiet neighborhood where David and any future children could play in the street without fear of heavy traffic or crime. Their neighbors would suspect nothing, and would have no idea that they had well over a trillion credits hidden away.

Sanson smiled as she imagined her husband as the president of the local PTA. He would have to revamp the whole school system, of course. The results would be just like everything else he did. The school would profit, the teacher's pay would go up, and the education would get better. This time, he would do it without killing a few billion people and no one would get upset.

Sanson paused in her daydreaming to remind herself where she was. She was in the presidential suite of the Coruscant Palace, surrounded by a million angry people who wanted her dead. Her husband was totally dejected, and she still did not know where her son was. She could hardly wait for that quiet neighborhood.

***

Mara set the cloaked Jade's Fire down on an empty landing pad. There were two other empty landing pads right next to hers, and Mara had noticed that there was virtually no air traffic to speak of in the sky above Coruscant.

The three occupants of the ship exited on to the top of the building. They could see the palace in the distance, over a kilometer away. Between them and the palace, covering everything in sight like grass on a hillside, were millions of people. Mara had never seen this many people gathered in one place.

Their building was one of the first that was not swarmed with people. The other buildings between them and the palace were jammed full. People were hanging out the windows, filling up the balconies, and covering the rooftops.

For all the hundreds of thousands of people, there was eerie quiet. Mara could see the charred sections of the crowd where turbo lasers had strafed the people. They had not yet become so unsensitized as to trample over the dead, and the small gaps scattered throughout the vast gathering told Mara that there had been some vicious carnage.

Now everyone was calm. There had been some brief activity when Sanson's shuttle had landed on the top of the palace, but several more turbo lasers had put that uprising to bed quickly. Mara could still see some patches of smoke rising from these more recent attacks.

"What are we to do?" Ra'tok asked. "Is that not the ship we followed here?" he pointed a clawed finger at the top of the distant palace.

Mara looked curiously at her friend. He wore his visor to protect his eyes from bright light, and had never had good day vision. As Mara raised a pair of microbinoculars to her eyes, she realized how the Defel had seen the ship. Smoke still rose from the ruined engines. The hot ship probably stuck out like a sore thumb in the cool Coruscant air to Ra'tok's heat sensitive eyes.

"That's the ship," Mara agreed. "And that means Sanson and Snotzenexer are inside."

"And how do you propose we breach the palace?" Eran asked, a little sarcasm creeping into his voice. "I mean it looks to me like a million people have already tried and failed."

Mara lowered the microbinoculars to level a glare at the young man. "Aren't you supposed to be the government agent specializing in complicated insertion assignments? How do you recommend we get inside?"

Eran decided to end his sarcastic routine in light of Mara's mood and concentrated seriously on the task at hand. There was a heavy shield surrounding the entire building. Eran was pretty sure that Mara's suped up ship would be able to take down the shield. The crowd had only tried blaster fire and rocks. If the Jade's Fire loosed a couple well-aimed torpedoes, they would probably bring down the shield.

Then came the turbo lasers. There were at least three different mounts that could hit any spot around the palace perimeter. There were maybe two dozen of the turbo laser mounts in all. It was very possible that while the Jade's Fire took out the shield, the turbo lasers would be taking out the Jade's Fire. If they managed to take out at lest five of the turbo lasers, they should have a clear path to one of the several entrances to the palace.

The guards were of little concern to Eran. He felt confident he could take down half of them, and he knew Mara and Ra'tok could more than handle the rest. Once inside, the palace would be crawling with guards. Eran had been inside the palace once before when he had delivered furniture and stolen the financial records. The palace had been full of guards back then. Now, with a mob of a million angry people outside, the guard density would be quadrupled at least.

Then there was the problem of the mob itself. If they somehow brought down the shield and disabled the turbo lasers, the throng would storm the palace without thought of anything but vengeance. They would leave nothing in their path, rolling over every guard they faced no matter how many in the crowd were killed in the process. If Snotzenexer and Sanson did not have an escape route planned, they would be killed without question. Eran did not doubt they would have an escape route planned, and the chaos would be perfect cover for it.

While the three onlookers tried to figure out how they were going to go about this mission, a second ship descended quietly from the sky. The steady thrumming noise from the crowd below masked this ship's engines perfectly. It settled down gently next to the Jade's Fire and shut down without alerting the roof's occupants. The hatch opened and two people walked out.

"So," Mara said, after a while of silence, "what do you think?"

"I've completed more complicated missions than this," Eran lied. "But I have none of my equipment. I haven't had the time to research this area properly, and we have no time to plan. Maybe if we had some more ti-"

"Maybe we can help."

Mara, Eran, and Ra'tok spun around sharply, wondering who could have approached the seasoned fighters without detection. Jacen and Jaina stood calmly before them. Eran nearly lost it. He reached suddenly inside his coat for his two lightsabers, but a motion from Jacen stopped him.

"It's all right," he said with a powerful voice. "I'm not here to fight you. We've done too much of that already."

Eran's hands were gripping the two lightsaber handles, his arms crossed in front of him, when he paused. Something in Jacen's composure calmed Eran, and he relaxed his arms. He drew the two weapons out of his jacket as slowly and unthreateningly as possible. "I think these belong to you," he said and gently tossed the two weapons toward their rightful owner.

Jacen caught the weapons easily and a look of relief came over his face. He examined the lightsabers as if he were reacquainting himself with old friends. The moment passed, and he placed them on his belt.

Mara was dumbfounded. She had seen Jacen many times before. She had even paid special attention to him as he was growing up because of a well-founded rumor that the young Solo had a crush on her. Mara was twice Jacen's age, and thoughts of any type of relationship were far from her mind, but she could not get over how good he looked.

Mara had woken suddenly when the Zorian had come, and she had talked at length with Jaina about what they thought had happened. If this is what Jacen looked like after being brought back from the dead, it was definitely something she would have to recommend to others.

Jacen was the perfect warrior. His muscles rippled visibly under his sleeveless shirt, which showed off his very impressive arms. His movements were completely balanced, and his eyes seemed ever alert. He looked so calm that he could fall asleep standing up, yet looked like he could leap into action without a split-second's notice.

Jaina looked different too. She did not look as powerful as Jacen, but much older. Jaina had gone through a very difficult time, and it had made her much wiser and maturer than her years should have allowed. She seemed confident, especially standing next to her brother. Mara suddenly felt like getting into the palace to get Sanson and Snotzenexer without the crowd interfering would be easy.

"Let's get moving," Jaina said. "We've got a lot of work to do."

***

Victor, Victir, and Victer, the cloned Imperial triplets, were the only Imperials having any luck at all. The VCY test pilots were good, but they were not good enough. The few who were flying VCY ships found that even though their ships were top of the line, they were no match for the clones' skill or the agility of the modified TIE's.

The test pilots who were flying stolen Imperial hardware, were not even given the chance to find out they were overmatched and died within the first few seconds of encounter with the clones. Victor and his brothers had been brainwashed by Sanson, turning them into unthinking killing machines. Though they retained all of their piloting skill, they memories were very different.

Occasionally during battle, Vince or Bep would streak by the dog-fighting trio, triggering some forgotten memory. The W-wings seemed excruciatingly familiar and had to be of some importance. The clones would have broken off and attacked the two ships, but they held too much false loyalty to abandon their posts in front of the Dark Fist.

All the other Imperial Star Destroyers were loosing badly, but the Dark Fist, with the help of the three clones was holding up very well. Its shields were still very much intact, and its position in the middle of the fleet, gave it more protection than the other ships were given.

Soon, the only capable Imperial ship left was the massive Super Star Destroyer and the barely wounded New Rebellion ships crowded around it. The clones were up to the challenge. The drifting wrecks of the defeated Imperial ships, kept most of the New Rebellion capitol ships at a distance, leaving the numerous freighters as the prominent attack force.

The Imperial triplets stung the freighters as they made their passes, finding all the weak sections of their ships. The battle was so obviously won that when the freighters took a few hits from the three fighters, they quickly withdrew, not seeing the need to risk their ships when the outcome was no longer on the line.

With the freighters avoiding the fighters, the Dark Fist began to concentrate on the remaining New Rebellion Star Destroyers. These ships also began to retreat once badly damaged, not wanting to risk the lives of the crew. The big difference between the two sides became clear. The Imperials would fight to the death; the New Rebellion would not.

Wedge and Thomas saw this right away. They knew they could knock out the ship if they just brought their remaining eight Star Destroyers in close, but the result would not be good. The New Rebellion would loose two, maybe three capitol ships before the Super Star Destroyer was defeated. As long as they neglected to take that plunge, the Dark Fist would continue to unleash its never-ending wrath on everything around it.

It was like a boxing match after one fighter had won the first seven rounds. Even if the other fighter won the next six, it fight was over. The only way for the loosing fighter to win now was to go for the knock out. The other fighter knew this and just danced around the ring, taking little punches and retreating when the big ones were thrown. The winner did not want to risk the possibility that he might get knocked out, and stayed on the defensive.

The problem with this space battle was that there were not just 13 rounds. This fight would go on forever until one side won. Thomas had repeatedly asked for the other side's surrender, but the Dark Fist Captain understood his enemy's weakness and refused to stand down. The Republic cruisers still were not ready to join in the fight and it would be up to the rebels to end it.

"Vince," Perry Tremon spoke into a private com link to his lieutenant."

"Yes, sir," the pilot responded.

"We need some help here."

Chapter 22 "Outsmarted"

An eerie silence fell over the huge crowd. Starting at a far edge of the street level gathering, the change of mood spread like a ripple in the pond. The ripple was made up of one whispered word: Jedi.

Jacen led the small group, followed closely by Jaina and Mara. Eran and Ra'tok trailed, not knowing how they would be received. Somehow, the densely packed crowd moved aside, creating a narrow aisle for the five newcomers to walk. The aisle turned into a moving bubble as the crowd closed in behind them, following the group

From far above, Snotzenexer saw the crowd's odd behavior. He could not identify the five individuals from his vantagepoint, but they were obviously important. The crowd gave the group plenty of space as they walked slowly toward the palace. "Take them out," Snotzenexer spoke into his com unit when they got within 100 meters.

The crowd remembered why they were keeping such a distance from the group when the turbo lasers fired. Jacen and Jaina were ready, and with a little help from Mara, the three raised a protective shell around them. The bolts dissolved like icicles thrown into a fire, sending waves of hot air over the group and the nearby crowd. The men operating the turbo mounts faltered a bit at this unusual turn of events.

Jaina took advantage of this brief reprieve and reached out to the three weapons that had fired. She was very familiar with how the guns worked and easily adjusted the focusing devices. When the turbo lasers fired again, each one exploded in a colorful bud of flame.

The whispered ripple of "Jedi" now turned into a cheer as the group continued toward the palace.

"The Jedi will bring us justice!"

"The Jedi will restore peace!"

The palace guards around the base of the capital, were not elevated enough to see the group approaching until they were very near. They had seen the turbo laser display, though, and knew something was up. As the crowd parted in front of them, giving the guards a clean shot at the approaching group, they took it. Five guards fired two quick, well-aimed shots at the approaching threat.

Jacen was leading the group, and his lightsabers came off his belt in a well-rehearsed motion. To the guards, it looked like the Jedi waited until the speedy bolts were halfway across the 30-meter gap between the opponents before he began his motion. The guards had heard of Jedi's ability to block laser fire, but none of them had ever seen it before. Even after Jacen's display, they still had not seen it, for the Jedi moved so fast, it looked like he had not moved at all. The only way the guards knew what Jacen had done was because none of the approaching group was lying on the ground and they had all heard the sharp, staccato sound of the ten shots ricocheting off the shield in front of them.

The guards tried to fire again but suddenly found they were no longer holding their blasters. The weapons were floating quickly toward the group. Jaina and Mara had yanked them with the Force and Jacen appreciated the help. Two of the guards raced after them, stupidly leaving the protective shell of the one-way shield. The quicker of the two guards leaped off the palace steps in a dive, caught his floating gun, landed in a somersault, and came up firing.

Jacen stepped forward and easily deflected the shot back into the guard's chest. The other anxious guard stopped short, turned about, and ran headlong into the shield. Mara caught two of the blasters and shot the prone guard as he tried to get up. Jaina caught the other two guns, but handed them to Eran as she pulled out her lightsaber.

Eran turned to offer one of the weapons to Ra'tok, but the Defel was gone. On closer inspection, Eran could see the alien's visor floating in the air. The visor turned to look at the young man, and Ra'tok realized he could still be seen. The invisible Defel removed his visor and handed it to Eran. "I guess I will have to live with the light."

"I'm sure you'll manage," Eran chuckled as he pocketed the visor. "I'll keep it safe." The two turned to look at their friends. Jacen was standing over two downed guards, while Mara was firing at more of the Imperials as they came pouring around and out of the palace.

"Are you two coming?" Jaina asked, her silhouette shimmering as she stood in the shield. "I can't keep this thing open all day."

"My apologies," Ra'tok said, and he and Eran quickly placed themselves on the inside of the shield. A few of the spectators in the crowd thought the shield was down, and made very uncomfortable discoveries that it was not.

The group went to work with amazing accuracy. Eran and Mara, with two blasters each, cut down the rushing guards as they crouched behind Jacen's protective blades. Ra'tok and Jaina stood next to the entrance to the palace using their invisible weapons to repel the enemy. Ra'tok's entire body was his weapon, while Jaina used her invisiblade.

Back during the early days of the Imperial uprising surrounding the Dark Ring, Jaina and Jacen had been captured by the Empire and brainwashed. While Jacen was turned into the next Darth Vader, Jaina had been turned into a lethal assassin. The Imperial scientist had modified Jaina's lightsaber so that the blade's wavelength was no longer within the visible spectrum. The invisiblade had been a painful reminder of Jaina's experience under the service of the Empire, but she had been able to put those memories behind her and had kept the incredibly useful weapon as it was.

The outside threat was put down quickly, and the five rebels entered the palace. Jacen, Jaina, and Mara had grown up in this building, and the three led the way while Eran and Ra'tok respectfully followed. The interior of the palace was exquisite. Crystal chandeliers, beautiful statues, and elaborate display cases adorned the walls and ceiling of the fabulous entryway. Colorful plants and lush carpeting covered the floors and staircases, as the large foyer expanded in several directions toward the rest of the palace.

The decor quickly changed to one of ugly destruction.

Guards poured into the room from at least seven different avenues. Turbo cannons and rocket launchers, automatic slug throwers and grenades joined the normal blaster fire as the Imperials opened up on the group. The five rebels spread just ahead of the ring of destruction that encompassed their former positions.

Eran's leap brought him right next to a large man with a turbo cannon slung over his shoulder. Eran had tucked himself into a ball and came out of his roll looking up at the tall man. The guard swung the cannon off his shoulder and brought the barrel down like a pile driver. Eran fired both his weapons at point blank, throwing the big man back and causing him to accidentally discharge his weapon into his feet.

The explosion threw Eran into a nearby display case, shattering the glass and cascading the contents down on top of him. Eran was about to get up when he looked down and saw a lightsaber handle in his lap. A quick glance around him showed that Republic historical memorabilia that had been stored in the display case surrounded him.

Eran was yanked back to his present situation as two blaster shots exploded into the shattered glass around him. Eran raised both his guns at the guards across the room and took them out. He also sensed someone coming from the side. On instinct, Eran dropped one of his guns and picked up the lightsaber. Crossing his fingers, Eran swung the weapon to his right. The blade sprang out from the never-before-used weapon and cut the approaching guard in half.

Having fought with Jacen's two lightsaber, Eran was comfortable holding the blade in only one hand and kept a blaster in the other as he shot down two more guards and slashed upward at one who tried to drop on him from a staircase.

Searching out the rest of his companions, Eran saw that Mara and Jaina were working well together. Mara picked off any guard that showed his face, while Jaina was busy hurling bodies around with the Force and enacting deadly punishment with her invisiblade. Eran could not see Ra'tok, but the screams from a nearby balcony that turned into bloody gurgles spoke plainly enough that the Defel would be fine.

Turning to look at Jacen, Eran was in awe. He had no idea how he had ever defeated the Jedi. Jacen's two blades wove around his body so fluidly, Eran thought he was watching a Twi'lek dancer twirl about a dozen blue ribbons. It looked like more blaster bolts left the dancing Jedi than were shot at him. A few guards tried to sneak in close range with vibroblades or hit him with grenades, but Jacen leaped and twirled out of the way, each time avoiding the attack with apparent ease.

Eran did spot some trouble for the Jedi. Above Jacen on the balcony that skirted the large entryway, a guard with another turbo canon was taking careful aim with his weapon, looking for an opening. Eran fired with his blaster, but this turbo canon came with personal shielding, and the blaster bolt bounced off the invisible shell.

Before Eran could warn Jacen, another guard came rushing at him. This man had apparently lost his blaster at some time during the fight and was brandishing a very long vibroblade in his right hand. Eran swung his lightsaber with his right arm, batting the smaller weapon out wide. The guard took a step back as Eran spun around and swung a second time, slashing across the man's mid section. The tip of the lightsaber dug into flesh, and the man dropped to his knees.

Eran ran at the man, stepped on his lowered shoulder, and leaped for the balcony. Eran dropped his blaster as he grabbed at the railing and hauled himself over. The guard with the laser canon was just a few meters away, and Eran charged him. He did not get there in time, and the guard fired on Jacen below.

For all the guard's caution in lining up the perfect shot into Jacen's back, the Jedi acted as if he had known it was coming. Not trusting a single blade's strength against the large bolt, Jacen brought his handles together in front of him, holding them tight with two hands and swung about.

The guard looked on in horror, but was committed to the action as he pulled the trigger on the shoulder held weapon. Eran was closing on the guard quickly and realized he was also in danger. As Jacen's twin blades connected with the turbo bolt, his big arms pulling the lightsabers through the swing like a professional smashball player, Eran leaped from the balcony. The guard watched in horror as his bolt came back at him, exploding into the elevated walkway and hurling him into the air.

Eran came to another rolling stop just behind Jacen. The Jedi, who had turned back around after his swing, was busy fighting off the rest of the guards who had thought him distracted. As Eran started to rise, Jacen's left blade swung out behind him toward the rising man at his back. Eran barely got his lightsaber up to intercept the blow.

The sound of the two weapons colliding made Jacen snap his head around to see whom he was blindly attacking. The two long time enemies locked gazes, and Eran wondered if his time in this universe was at an end. Instead, Jacen smiled. "Move."

"Move?" Eran echoed, but as Jacen leaped away, Eran saw the Imperial behind him and the grenade that was airborne between them. Eran barely got outside the blast radius, his roll bringing him back to the last Imperial he had killed. He scooped up the blaster he had dropped when he had leaped off the dying man's shoulder and returned fire on the grenade wielding Imperial. The first shot missed, but the second and third shot took the man in the chest, causing him to drop the next grenade he was holding, which took out a good section of the nearby stairwell.

Eran and Jacen stayed alert as their eyes swept over the carnage around them. The room looked like the testing grounds for weapon development. Bodies lay everywhere, but none of them were moving. The two men relaxed.

"Where are the others?" Eran asked, referring to Jaina, Mara, and Ra'tok.

Jacen pointed his finger to the ceiling. "They went up."

"Not a bad idea," Eran replied. He ran over to a flight of stairs, jumped over a missing section easily, and made his way over to a turbo lift. Jacen took the quicker route, flipping up the ten meters to the lift. "Show off," Eran muttered as he stepped into the lift.

Jacen just shrugged as he followed into the lift. He pushed a button and the doors closed. Before the lift had a chance to move, Jacen sprang into action. His lightsabers came alive again, cutting in opposite horizontal directions in the door, and then in opposing vertical ones. The Jedi kicked out the square hole he had made and turned to his startled companion. "Get out!"

Eran did not argue, having no idea what was happening. Jacen followed closely behind Eran and neither of the agile warriors looked coordinated as they tumbled from the balcony to the lower level of the foyer. An enormous explosion emerged from the turbo lift and flooded the vast room with flame.

Eran and Jacen dropped to the floor just beneath the explosion as flame shot over their heads. Eran thought he was dead for sure, but the well constructed palace level contained the explosion better than could have been expected, and the initial shack wave did little structural damage.

"What happened?!" Eran shouted, his ears ringing badly.

"Someone dropped a thermal detonator down the shaft as soon as we activated the lift," Jacen responded.

Eran was testing his legs slowly as he rose, choking on the heat and smoke. He took a few steps away from the wall and looked up at the demolished lift. The gaping hole in the wall reminded Eran how close he had just come to death. "It looks like we take the stairs."

The two men left the room quickly, realizing they had a long climb ahead of them.

***

Vince circled his troops in front of the Dark Fist. Bep and Jon flew beside him, while most of the remaining test pilots were further back. Anakin, Luke, and the Jedi students also congregated before the massive ship. The V-38's had been very successful against the smaller Star Destroyers, but did not have the rapid-fire capability to do any real damage against the Super Star Destroyer. Many of the V-38's had returned to their mother ship because their power cells had run out.

Facing the New Rebellion fighters was what was left of the Imperial ships. The three prominent modified TIE's sat out in front, looking very familiar to the 185th. Behind them, fighters and interceptors moved about, anxious to end this battle.

Vince knew they had to take out the three main fighters to break the backbone of the remaining Imperial fighters and allow the freighters to regain their advantage. None of the fighters had enough firepower to do any real damage against the Super Star Destroyer, and the New Rebellion capitol ships were still trying to move around the wreckage to get a clear shot at the Dark Fist.

"Let's take them out."

The three modified TIE's met the 185th head on. Almost out of respect, the remaining fighters let the aces join their battle before attacking the remaining enemies. For Vince and Bep, it was de-ja-vu. They had fought these clones before, and neither side had ever gotten an upper hand. For Jon it was different.

The youngest member of the 185th hooked up with Victor, the template from which the clones had been made. Jon had fought him several times, mostly in a simulator, but they had met briefly in real space before Vince had pulled a daring maneuver and the three W-wings had escaped. Jon no longer flew his W-wing, and his M-wing should have given him a distinct advantage. It did not.

Victor and Jon had fought to near standstills in their previous battles. Jon's ship had been too strong to be hurt by the modified TIE, while the Victor's had been too evasive for the W-wing. Now Jon had the best of both worlds. His M-wing was just as fast and slippery as Victor's TIE and had lost none of his older W-wing's power. Instead of having an advantage, though, Jon found his opponent was flying with more skill than Jon had thought possible.

Victor had always been a stunt pilot, but had never taken part in combat before. Since joining (unwillingly) Sanson's fleet, he had fought against dozens of pirates and had opened up a battle lust that his Imperial brainwashing embraced. He no longer flew for the thrill of victory, but for the enjoyment of killing. All the other thoughts that used to cloud his mind when he flew were gone, and he was more focused than anyone else in space.

Jon and Victor's opening was very impressive, both of them seeing to have three hands as they kept laser volleys flying through the air, corkscrewed their ships, and went into a dive and a climb respectively. In all their other fights, there had been no scenery other than empty space, but now the Dark Fist offered a rather impressive playground.

Jon flew tantalizingly close to the huge ship before pulling out of the corkscrew and back toward his enemy with the Dark Fist as a backdrop. Victor had turned around and hesitated when he saw Jon's straight route. It would be very easy for the Imperial pilot to obtain a missile lock on the M-wing. Victor was slowly beginning to remember his earlier fights with Jon, and while he had not yet identified the pilot of this unique ship, he felt he had faced this adversary before and that a missile lock would prove useless.

Victor's hesitation increased as he realized that with the Dark Fist behind the M-wing, any missed shot would hit his own allies. Victor grinned at his clever opponent, and then frowned when his ship was rocked with laser fire from an unseen enemy. Jon had not really thought Victor would fire on him, with the Super Star Destroyer behind him, but had not expected the Imperial pilot to pause so dramatically when contemplating the situation.

A VCY ship came upon the stalled enemy TIE and hit it with two shots before Victor reacted. Jon cursed the VCY test pilot. "Stay out of this," Jon said under his breath. It was not that he wanted the kill for himself. He just did not want the VCY pilot to die.

Victor swung about quickly, flying right past the surprised VCY fighter. The test pilot had thought the TIE was truly stalled and was not prepared for such a quick turn about. He quickly tried to flip his ship around also. Jon saw the whole thing from a distance as he desperately tried to close the gap between him and the other two fighters.

Victor had wasted no time in pulling another 180, flying right back along his previous path. The test pilot had barely gotten himself turned around when the TIE came screaming past him again. He was getting dizzy as he turned his ship around again, loosing all the speed he had gained during his previous turn. The pilot had finally gotten around again, but the TIE had done the same and was flying at him with laser canons blazing.

The test pilot panicked, and as his ship took three hits he pushed his ship down into a dive away from the deadly TIE. Victor followed easily, catching up with the injured VCY ship and blowing it out of the sky. Jon came in behind the TIE, just a moment too late. He was hesitant to fire at first, knowing any missed shot might hit the test pilot, but once he saw the VCY fighter explode, Jon let Victor have it.

Victor had almost forgotten about Jon, but after three shots flew past him and the fourth one landed square on his backside, the Imperial pilot pulled out of the dive, reversing his direction and crossing up Jon the same way he had done to his last foe. Jon was not dumb enough to try and follow the TIE as it sped past him, and continued forward turning around at a safe distance.

Jon saw that Victor had known his new enemy would not try to follow, and instead of doubling back, he was headed back toward the Dark Fist. Jon punched his accelerators, firing his laser cannons hard at the distant. The shots lit up the Star Destroyer's shield as the TIE skimmed above it. The shots also gave Victor a good idea of Jon's trajectory.

The Imperial pilot pulled out of skimming flight and into a head on collision with the incoming M-wing. The M-wing was not there. From Victor's left Jon came flying in, laser canons still firing and hitting the TIE twice. Victor cursed himself for assuming Jon would hold the same flight line after announcing it so clearly to the TIE. He pulled the advanced TIE into a full curve, hoping to find the topside of Jon's approaching ship, but the M-wing's extraordinary acceleration had brought Jon right behind Victor as the Imperial pulled the move.

Victor was getting tired of this quickly. He had been hit three times by this pilot and had not been able to retaliate yet. As he accelerated away with Jon still on his tail, a memory began to come back to him. Victor was slowly remembering their last fight together in the simulator. The Imperial had been frustrated then too and had finally pulled a move that his opponent had not found a counter for.

Victor distanced himself from the Dark Fist, making sure his tail never got a clear shot on him. Jon closed on the slower ship quickly during the slow turn. The TIE suddenly made the turn sharper, and Jon found himself right on top of the nearly stationary fighter. It was the same maneuver Victor had used in the simulator and it left Jon with the same shot: point blank on the top rear of the TIE. Jon took it, and got two close range laser bolts to land hard on the back of the ship.

Jon slowed so he would not jump too far in front of his enemy, and like Jon expected, Victor pulled up along side him. Jon's M-wing alerted him immediately that the TIE had attained a tractor beam lock, a feature Jon had insisted the VCY techs put in his ship knowing this time would come. Jon tested the tractor lock briefly, guessing what the result would be. He put his ship in a steep dive, rotating along his central axis one revolution and then cutting his ship back up. The TIE barely stayed with him, more hanging on for the ride than propelling itself.

Jon knew that Victor had linked his autopilot to the tractor beam and that there was only one way out of this maneuver. When they had been in the simulator, Jon had turned his zero-radius-turning ship to face the TIE. When he had, Victor had executed a precalculated micro jump with his ship's hyperspace engines, looping about and coming in behind Jon's trajectory with the side of his ship to shoot at. With Jon turned sideways, he had been momentarily paralyzed and had taken three torpedoes at point blank range.

Jon had gotten into this position now the same way he had back in the simulator, by landing hard shots on the back of the TIE, right where the inertia damper was located. Jon smiled as he turned his M-wing to face his enemy, putting his ship in a vulnerable position flying sideways. Victor was ready for the move and punched in his micro jump. The TIE stretched itself into hyperspace briefly, suffered astronomical g-forces, and was ripped apart at the molecular level, something the simulator could not simulate.

Jon could not help but grin as the waves of the atomic blast from the deceased TIE tossed his strong ship about. The TIE had been far enough away when it ripped itself apart that the blast did not hurt the M-wing too much, but Jon was momentarily disoriented.

Down closer to the Dark Fist, Vince and Bep were desperately trying to loose their tails. Victer and Victir were hanging close to the pair and severely draining the W-wing's shields. The four ships were flying so close to the Super Star Destroyer, they spent most of their time dodging sensor towers and avoiding turbo laser mounts. When Victor was so dramatically ripped from existence, his two brothers suffered sever disorientation. Their minds whirled as the unique Force link they had shared was ripped away from them. Their ships wavered drastically and then crashed into the next surface feature of the Super Star Destroyer.

Vince and Bep saw that their tails had both made critical errors at the same time, and knew something out of the ordinary had to be involved. They pulled away from the Dark Fist, and saw Jon's ship coming toward them. The two pilots correctly identified the source of their salvation, but incorrectly identified the method. "Thanks, Jon. Nice shooting."

Jon had seen what had happened, but was not going to deny the credit right now. "No problem, guys."

The three fighters reformed into a seldom-used formation and went in search of far less challenging assignments. Unfortunately, Anakin and Luke had been on the prowl, and had not left much for the 185th. What was left quickly fell and Vince relayed the information to his commanding officers.

Wedge smiled, never doubting for a moment that his prized squadron could handle the job. "Well done." He then signaled to Han and Lando that their ships could resume their attack runs on the Dark Fist. It would not be long now.

***

Snotzenexer and Sanson watched the proceedings in the palace foyer through security cameras all the way up until the thermal detonator took out all the cameras. The couple could feel the shock wave travel through the building, but were not too quick to label the two men dead.

Snotzenexer had watched as Mara, Jacen, and Jaina, three people he had been sure were dead, had teamed up with Eran - always a thorn in Snotzenexer's side - and a fifth mysterious creature and had leveled his best men without taking any injuries. Now, a minute after the blast, Snotzenexer watched as Eran and Jacen worked their way up the palace. Their clothes were burnt and tattered, but they did not seem to have any major injuries.

The Imperial genius and been outsmarted at every turn. He had set the trap for Jade and the youngest Solo, who must also be alive, in the Hoth system, and they had not only escaped but had expected the attack enough to leave evidence that they had died. Snotzenexer had expected the Rebels to hit him with outlandish accusations that he would easily be able to refute. Instead they had used a well-organized collection of factual evidence to discredit him beyond what he could handle. They had then used his own Trade Federation, the source of most of his power, to assemble a fleet of ships that were even now dismantling his own fleet.

A small chime went of in the corner of the palace quarters and Snotzenexer went over to investigate. "David is here," he said. He had instructed the nurse to take a heavily shielded ship. Even with the distraction below, the incoming ship had suffered severe damage landing, and would not be able leave. The nurse came down the turbo shaft to the presidential suite and presented the ruling family with their son.

"Can we use your ship to leave?" Sanson asked the older woman.

The nurse shook her head. "It will not fly again."

Sanson nodded as she took her son. David's eyes looked back and forth between his parents. He was scared, that much was obvious. The ship he had flown in on had underwent a very rough landing, and David had always loved flying. The infant was only 40 days old, but he knew something was wrong. Instead of crying, he looked to his parents for help and protection.

Snotzenexer looked at the intelligence in his son's eyes and regretted not being able to raise him in a more stable environment. David should have attended the best schools on Coruscant and would have grown up to be the greatest leader the universe had ever seen. Now, he would have to grow up on a primitive world. Once he left home and learned about the history of the Republic, he would be too smart not to connect his parents to these events.

Snotzenexer could worry about that later. Right now he had to lead his family out of this building. Not an easy task with five very capable rebels climbing toward him, any one of which would be able to stop him easily. Beyond them were the millions who wanted him dead.

Snotzenexer walked over to a chest to get what he would need for his escape. He grabbed a few voucher cards, a blaster, two unique bracelets, and a cloth baby carrier. He tossed the baby carrier to his wife as he put on the bracelets, strapped on the blaster, and slipped the vouchers in his pocket. He had created several dummy accounts in which he had put hundreds of billions of credits and he could get at it most anywhere in the galaxy, but he would need the vouchers until he could get to a bank.

Sanson quickly place David in the carrier and slipped her arms through the straps. "I take it we are leaving on foot," she said as her son settled comfortably on her back.

Snotzenexer nodded. "We are going underneath them, since they obviously won't let us go above."

A shudder went thorough Sanson as she realized the implications of her husband's statement. The underworld of Coruscant was not a friendly place, especially for two non-fighters transporting a baby. Sanson said nothing, trusting her husband. She could not afford to question his judgment now. Instead she strapped on her own blaster and picked up two electric torches for her and her husband.

Snotzenexer stepped over to the turbo lift, checking briefly on the five rebels' progress. They were only 30 seconds from bursting through the doors in the corner of the room. The couple moved into the turbo lift quickly and Snotzenexer entered a code into the control panel. The lift went down sharply for a few seconds, slowed to go sideways, and then dropped like a stone deep into the bowels of the city planet.

Chapter 23 "The Chase"

Ra'tok was the first person to make it to the presidential quarters. Oddly enough he was the only one who had never been in the building before. The path had been easy enough to find, and working alone, the invisible Defel had found little resistance as he made his way up.

The nurse was still standing in the room, staring curiously at the open door that no one had yet passed through. Ra'tok smiled and emerged from his invisibility. He flexed his corded muscles as he stepped toward the old woman, his claws glowing red with blood. "Where did they go?" he asked in a very gruff voice.

The nurse fainted dead away. Mara and Jaina raced into the room from a back entrance Mara had known about. Mara took one look at Ra'tok's bloody claws and the old woman lying on the ground and scolded the Defel. "What did you do that for?!"

Jaina shook her head, smiling as she walked past the redhead, sensing the old woman was uninjured. "Did you see which they went?" she asked Ra'tok.

"They were gone before I arrived, and this poor woman did not have the constitution to stay conscious long enough to tell me."

Mara looked meek as she realized the woman had fainted and was not dead. Jacen and Eran chose this as a good time for their arrival. Mara and Jaina were busy rummaging through the room trying to find out were the couple could have gone. Jacen did not bother. He walked over the turbo lift. "They went down."

"Down?" Mara disagreed. "But the crowd is down there. They can't possibly think they can get past them."

"Yea," Jaina agreed. "They should be looking for a ship to fly away, though I can't think of where they might get one."

"They went down," Jacen said again, lending a tone to his voice that declared he was not guessing.

Mara shrugged and walked over to the lift controls. The lift was away and but no longer in motion. The panel refused to tell Mara where it had gone. Regardless, Mara summoned the lift back. It took several moments for the transport to retraces its long path, and everyone had a sinking feeling about where the couple had gone.

Jacen stepped into the lift first, looking at the controls and motioning to his sister. She obliged him and held her hand over the panel. "He entered a special code," Jaina said with her eyes half closed. Sensing what it had been, she repeated the key sequence, and the lift took off with its five occupants.

***

Far below, Snotzenexer and Sanson crept through the clammy darkness. Water seemed to drip from everywhere, masking the scurrying feet of nastily clawed rodents that moved about. Eyes seemed to peer at the couple from everywhere as they moved quickly through the tight walkway.

Though no one had been down this way in quite some time, there seemed to be a definite path to follow. It wound through scattered debris that was stacked up to the level's ceiling three and a half meters above, sometimes poking though to the next level. The huge chunks of crumbled permacrete and bent durasteel beams held together by thick wires and twisted rebars simulated a rocky jungle for the couple to walk through. The constant water and animal noises combined with the irregularity of the ceiling above only increased the feeling that they were walking through a wild rain forest.

The path beneath their feet started to become more rocky and uneven as they walked further from the palace turbo lift. Snotzenexer stopped, realizing that if an attack was to come from the unseen predators, it would happen on this uneven ground where the attackers would feel their prey was at a disadvantage.

Despite David's supernatural maturity for a baby, he could not cope with this creepy environment. He began to cry softly, and Sanson tried desperately to coo him. The attack came from behind. A four-legged beast - half wolf, half demon - tackled Sanson, slamming into her back. The animal's legs straddled the helpless infant as the beast pinned its mother to the ground. The beast took a moment to sniff the baby delicacy before it sunk its teeth in.

It never got the chance.

Snotzenexer blew the hell beast off his wife's back with a vicious burst of lightening. The lightening bursts came from the special bracelets Snotzenexer wore. He had the power turned up all the way, and they only had a few charges left.

A beast already in mid flight when Snotzenexer had unleashed his killing blow to the first animal, cried out in terror as it flew toward Snotzenexer. The president fell to his knees as the beast sailed over his head. Snotzenexer had a feeling the animal would not turn to attack him again but needed to make sure. He unleashed another powerful blast into the animal's flank, ripping the flesh from its side.

David was crying loudly now, the harness ripped from Sanson's back and the mother cradling her son to her chest. Half a dozen of the intelligent demon dogs wandered into the light of the couple's torches. "We are sorry, Master. We did not think you would ever return. I beg you to be merciful."

Sanson looked up from her son in shock. The words had just come from one of the creatures. Its lips worked in a very curious manner as the maw spoke.

Snotzenexer smiled to himself. "You will not make the same mistake again," he said with a guttural vibration to his voice. He raised his hands toward the wolf that had spoken. Snotzenexer felt the power in his bracelets was nearly gone, and decided against the display. "Remember who you are dealing with," Snotzenexer said, lowering his arms, satisfied with the frightened reaction he had gotten from the creature. Any one of the beasts could end his life easily, but he had them trapped in fear now.

"We are being followed," Snotzenexer said evenly. "I do not wish to be followed."

"As you wish, Master," the clever beast understood without needing an explanation. "Your path will be clear behind and in front."

"You serve your master well, and you will be rewarded."

Sanson moved close to her husband, not yet comfortable with the power he had over these beasts. David was only now calming down.

"Is the child injured?" the creature asked with genuine concern.

"If he had been, all your lives would be forfeit," Snotzenexer turned his heel on the creatures and continued walking down the path. "Do not fail me in this task."

Sanson was quick to follow, very confused. She understood that the creatures they left behind understood basic, and that they would send a scout ahead to clear the way, so she talked quietly into her husband's ear. "What was that?"

"The Emperor kept them as pets. I understand that they were his favorite means for executing officers. Plus they made exceptional guards for the lower level entrances into the palace."

"And they thought you were Palpatine . . .why?"

Snotzenexer shook his wrists. "The lightening bolts. They were Palpatine's trademark." Snotzenexer smiled as they walked at a brisk pace. "Never underestimate the power of research and preparation."

For the first time in a long time, Sanson felt supremely confident as she walked next to her husband. They would escape.

***

The lift opened at the bottom of the shaft and no one moved.

The five individuals looked out into the dreary underworld and did not want to leave the protection and cleanliness of the lift. Jacen and Ra'tok crept out first, feeling the least uncomfortable in the group. The other three followed behind slowly.

Eran was the only one that needed light to see, but did not mention it, guessing the group could go undetected better in darkness. It was not a good guess. The creatures of the underworld could see better in pitch-black than in daylight, and if the group carried torches it would no more announce their presence than their body heat already did.

Ra'tok understood this better than anyone, having excellent infravision. He had hunted in pitch-blackness back on his home planet many times, and while he did not feel comfortable in this environment, he did not feel out of place. "Keep your weapons ready," he growled softly.

Jacen had both his lightsabers in his hands, still not wanting the light of the blue blades to announce his presence. Jaina felt she could ignite her weapon, as the invisible blade gave off no light, but she kept it off for now. Mara held both blasters at her shoulders, ready to fire at anything that moved. Eran had holstered his blaster and held his new lightsaber in both hands. Rather than shooting at what he could not see, he preferred a weapon where pinpoint accuracy was not a necessity.

As with the previous group, the demon dogs slowly followed their prey, seeking out the week member of the group. When Snotzenexer had come through, the creatures had easily chosen David as the weak link in the group. Now as the animals searched the party of five on the path below, they could find no weak link.

Eran was frightened and unsure, but he emitted a strength that was not comforting to the beasts. Mara, Jaina, and Jacen emitted that same strength on a much higher level. Ra'tok really peeked the animals' interests. Defel were canine in origin, though the race had evolved far past their four-legged ancestors.

In the end, Eran was chosen. Eran's fear extended his senses to an extreme level, making each drip sound like a waterfall. So when a demon dog leaped from a nearby perch howling with glee, it felt like the whole city was falling on top of him. In one split second, Eran threw aside his fear and fell into the calmness that he had used countless times before when doing battle.

The lightsaber came alive suddenly, blinding the flying beast as he plowed into it. The sheer ferocity of the attack tore the animal in half against the lightsaber. Eran was thrown to his back as the blood and gore of the dead beast fell on top of him.

All around the other four companions, creatures began to attack, following the orders of their Dark Master. Jacen's blades came alive, swiping at everything that had four legs. Mara's fingers never relaxed for a second as she drained her blasters' power cells into the animals around her. Jaina swung her deadly blade about also, cutting off limbs and slicing through heads as she was harvesting wheat in a field.

Ra'tok took his retaliation to a more primal level, engaging his evil brethren in one on one combat. The demon beasts were extremely powerful, but the biggest of the lot only weighed half as much as Ra'tok, and was nowhere as strong. The dogs tried to swarm the Defel, but whenever a throat came too close it was slashed. One of the beasts jumped on Ra'tok's back, but before it could clamp its jaws on the Defel's neck, he hurled himself backwards, impaling his assailant on an exposed rebar. Ra'tok jumped away from the rubble, leaving the dead animal suspended from the durasteel rod and slashed his claws across the maw of another leaping animal.

Eran was still struggling with the body of the first animal that had attacked him when Jaina reached her hand down to pick him up. "Come on! Let's go!"

Eran got to his feet with the offered help, but repaid the favor by shoving Jaina to the ground. A flying hound that had zeroed in on the Jedi's back now had Eran's blade to deal with. One deadly swipe ensured the animal would never walk again, and Eran side-stepped the bloody body as it crashed into a pile of broken permacrete.

"Let's go!" Eran screamed at Jaina, a little bit of sarcasm creeping into this tension filled situation.

Jaina scowled at him as he helped her up and the pair raced after the other three members of their group. They ran through the underworld as quickly as possible. More creatures of varying species and sizes attacked them as they passed through the dangerous environment.

Finally, a demon beast twice as big as any before fell from a raised level, blocking their path. "Jedi," the creature growled in a phlegm filled voice. "The Master did not say his pursuers would be Jedi. All the more fun for us."

The dog jumped straight at Jacen. His twin lightsabers flashed in front of him, but the weight of the incredible beast held up under the initial barrage and bowled Jacen over. Ra'tok leaped on the monster's back, clamping his powerful claws into demon's neck and straining to keep the maw away from Jacen's face. Jacen's arms were crossed under the weight of the beast, his lightsabers taken out of the equation and leaving him with no leverage.

Mara placed two carefully aimed shots into the creature's face, but Ra'tok got in the way, and she had to hold any further fire. Jaina and Eran wanted to join the attack, but could not risk hitting Jacen or Ra'tok. Finally, in one great heave, the Defel lifted the front paws of the creature off of Jacen. Ra'tok stood straddling the canine like a small horse, his feet braced on some rubble crowding in on the narrow passage and his claws dug into the beasts neck.

The hell-spawned creature pawed the air above Jacen, trying to find some type of purchase with its front legs. Ra'tok strained against the weight and strength of the beast, as his claws slowly ripped apart the neck of the struggling dog.

Jacen took this momentary freedom to uncross his arms, his lightsabers cutting across his attacker's midsection like a giant pair of scissors. The blades cut deep into the animal's flank. It howled in pain as it reared up on its hind legs, throwing Ra'tok off its back.

Jacen sat up and braced his weapons on the ground as the demon came crashing back down on him, impaling itself on both the blades. Its shriek filled the small chamber with a deafening pierce before it ended in a gurgling finality.

Jacen shoved the dead thing off him, confident that no more of the demon hounds would come after them now that their leader was dead. Ra'tok got up slowly, shaken but not badly hurt.

The group was weary, but they hurried on, fearful that Snotzenexer and Sanson would get too big a lead on them. After a few minutes of travel, the path ended at a very old transit terminal.

"Where to now?" Eran asked, huffing between words.

Jaina walked over to the derelict rail cars, checking for a miracle. She found one. "Guys, I think one of these might be operational."

Jacen had a funny feeling about them also. He looked down the track as it sloped gradually up. "They were here just a few minutes ago and took a transport down these tracks."

"Well," Eran said, "it was nice of them to leave one for us too."

Jaina did not think they had done so on purpose. "I'm sure they took a much better transport than these," she said, kicking a huge panel of rust off of one of them. "These run on fuel, and don't go very fast. If Snotzenexer had set this route up in advance, and it looks like he had, he probably had a very new transport waiting for him."

The five did not need to debate the situation any more and piled into the small car as Jaina got the thing started. It almost did not start, and would not have if Jaina had not prodded it with the Force. It started moving slowly at first, and only got slower as it climbed toward the surface.

"We might as well be walking," Mara said, frustrated that Snotzenexer and Sanson were getting away.

Jaina frowned at the comment, but realized that her earlier observation had been in error. This car was not operational, and it was only her constant prodding with the Force that kept the engine turning. Jacen realized this and began to lend a mental hand. Between the two of them, and eventually Mara, they got the car moving at a very decent clip.

They went over 20 kilometers before the track ran out and they saw a much newer transport stopped ahead of them. Jaina had a look of "I told you so" on her face, but the sight of the transport only reminded the group how big a lead their prey had. Jacen walked up to the vehicle. "They have about a ten minute lead on us. We need to move."

The next kilometer of the trip was almost entirely vertical and the group behind gained on the Imperial couple ahead considerably. Eran was the slowest on the ladders and stairs, but even he was three times as fast as Sanson carrying a baby.

When the group finally climbed into the fading daylight they were hit by a gust of salty wind. They had all lost their sense of direction while underground, but now knew where they were going. "The ocean," Jacen said.

Though Coruscant was one giant city, that did not mean it did not have water. The huge planet had two very large oceans that supplied the planet with all the water it needed. Unlike most planets, the water front property on Coruscant was not very expensive. In fact, the area around the oceans was probably the most desolate area of all.

When Coruscant had begun to grow into what it is now, the land right next to the water could not support the immense weight placed on it by the growing architecture, and huge sections of the city fell into the ocean. Instead of trying again, the city planners just moved their buildings further and further away from the fragile coast. The result was a city structure that sloped dramatically upward from the coast, and as civilization climbed with the levels, gaining several kilometers in altitude, they left the rubble at sea level far behind.

They were not at sea level now, but at least a kilometer above it. In front of the small group was a cliff that halved that height at least. It was not a natural cliff, but the result of one large section of construction that had slid into the soft ground and not been repaired.

Even though most of the homeless vagrants that roamed the underworld avoided the coasts due to its lack of protection from the weather, there were several makeshift roads that traced along its surface. Jacen led the way down one of these now, sensing the pair they chased had done so just a few minutes earlier. The road stopped at the edge of the cliff, and the group finally got their first look at who they had been chasing.

Snotzenexer and Sanson looked like ants racing across the uneven road far below. Jacen saw that they had used an antigrav pad to get down, more evidence that Snotzenexer had set up this escape long ago. The pad was disabled over 500 meters below and there was only one way down for the group.

The cliff was made up of a long row of ancient buildings, which had been monumental in their day. The buildings had tried to crumble with age, but their size and relative closeness kept them standing - sort of. The half-hearted effort resulted in a semi-level surface on top of the buildings with large hollow sections underneath.

At the cliff the ground had given way along a coastal fault line, and skyscrapers that had not fallen into the water or down the sinkhole, had crashed into the remaining buildings that stood on stronger ground. There were sections of the cliff that descended at a 60 degree angle for a spell, where a building had not fallen completely over, but sheets of broken glass and gaping holes in the side of building would not make for a pleasant ride down.

Jacen turned to Mara. "Can you do it?"

Mara looked at the drop, knowing she would not be able to use anything but the Force to slow her down. The Emperor had taught her a trick similar to this a long time ago, and she hoped she could remember. She nodded in response to Jacen's question.

Jacen walked over to Ra'tok, the heavier of the two non-Jedi. "Do you trust me?"

"Not in the slightest," Ra'tok replied, "but I do not think I have a choice."

Eran was quite content to stand at the edge of the cliff and watch the two Imperials escape, but he knew his friends would not let him. Jaina's touch was soft as she grabbed his hand. "Come on," she said quietly, repeating her words from earlier. "Let's go."

Without further warning Jaina leaped off the edge of the broken buildings, pulling Eran with her. The former government agent let out a very unpleasant scream as he hurtled through the sky.

Snotzenexer turned at the sound and saw the other three jump from the cliff. A million curses ran through his mind. "Why don't they just die?" He looked down at his wrists, hoping the bracelets had one decent charge left in them. The cliff was over 100 meters away, but he raised his arm and aimed anyway.

The lightening burst toward the top of the permacrete wall, and exploded against the brittle structure. Cracks formed in the ancient buildings and huge sections of rubble broke free under the assault. They crashed into protruding sections below them, tearing them free, and the landslide was on in full force.

Mara had been the last to jump, and felt the first few small rocks on her shoulders before she was halfway down the cliff. When dealing with great heights, the common saying is to not look down, but now Mara did not dare look up, as she knew what must be falling towards her.

The bigger pieces fell slower as they were constantly hitting outcroppings and dragging against the slightly sloped sections of the cliff, but they still fell much faster than Mara. Below her, Mara could see that Jacen was falling much faster, and knew the strong Jedi trusted in his ability to slow before he hit the ground. Mara hoped she could do the same as permacrete chunks as big as a landspeeder began to fall past her. She let go of the Force and let go a scream as her stomach leaped into her throat.

The ground came at her with incredible speed, and her fear was clouding her Force ability. With only 50 meters to go, Mara had still put forth no effort to slow herself but felt Jacen and Jaina helping her out. Their strength lent her some confidence, and she slowed just enough to keep her impact below lethal speed.

Mara's left leg snapped like a twig when she hit, and she felt her other ankle twist almost completely around. Through the pain, Mara knew death was still a very real possibility in the form of hundreds of tons of rock landing on her head. She tried to rise, but as the rocks pummeled her body, she collapsed, resigned to die. Instead of death taking her, two sets of very strong hands heaved her into the air and carried her away just as an 80-ton chunk of permacrete smashed her previous location.

Eran and Ra'tok stayed just ahead of the falling debris, dragging Mara between them until a spinning I-beam took the Defel in the back, throwing him 20 meters ahead. Jacen and Jaina were trying to keep the flow of rock away from the three, but the metal I-beam had slipped through their concentration toward the mainly permacrete landslide.

Eran stumbled under the sudden weight transfer, and let the racing flow of rock catch Mara's trailing leg. The woman had lost conscious long ago, and could give Eran no help. He tried to free her legs from the light rocks, but had to dive out of the way, as particularly large rock almost took his head off. Instead, it smashed Mara's arm.

The slide was nearly at its end, but while Eran cursed his carelessness for not finding a way to redirect the rock that had hit Mara, another smaller one, clipped his side and spun him into the path of a larger one that knocked the wind out of him. He struggled to remain standing over Mara's prone form with his lightsaber out, daring another rock to come his way. None did, and the slide was over.

Jacen and Jaina rushed to Eran's side as he fell next to Mara, hurt and exhausted. Mara was not moving, but she was breathing. Jaina remembered Ra'tok and went over to see if he was okay. The Defel was groaning softly. Amazingly, he had no broken bones, but had probably sustained a major concussion that would leave him groggy for a good long while.

Jaina saw there was nothing she could do for him right away, and turned back to her brother. Jacen was carefully removing Mara from the small pile covering her legs. She ran over to his side to help. Jacen looked up at her. "I can handle this. Mara will be okay. You need to catch Snotzenexer before he gets away."

"But . . ."

"No," Jacen said. "You have to go stop them. They can't get away."

Jaina wavered on the edge for a while, really wanting to help her brother, but also understanding that if she did not give chase now, the Imperials would get away for good. She gave one last look at Mara's broken body and then turned away to finish their original mission.

Jaina could barely see the two Imperials just over half a kilometer ahead. They looked to be heading for a dilapidated parking garage right on the coast. The terrain was very rocky and downhill, with a few patches of real ground showing through in places. The Imperials were just seconds away from the garage, where they no doubt had another transport waiting.

There was no feasible way for Jaina to make up the distance in time, but the Force was often unfeasible. She filled herself with energy as she started to run, her feet picking a careful route over the very rough ground. The wind blew her long brown hair straight back as she nearly flew across the terrain.

Jaina covered the almost 750 meters to the old parking facility in just over a minute and only slowed slightly as she sprang up the steps that the Imperials had climbed just moments before. She could hear the surf pounding away against the man made ocean cliff a few dozen meters straight ahead and almost a quarter kilometer down.

Jaina went up two levels in the wide open parking garage until she found her targets. As the Jedi crested the last couple steps, a blaster bolt seared though her hair and sent her diving to the floor, coming up in a defensive crouch with her invisiblade in front of her. She deflected the next two shots easily, and Sanson stopped firing before Jaina sent one of the shots back at her.

The Imperial Admiral was holding her son in one arm and the blaster in the other. Jaina could hear a steady humming from the new-looking transport behind her and knew where Snotzenexer had to be. The transport was a simple four-seater, capable of elevated travel with a very respectable top speed. It was parked in the corner of the open level with a sharp drop to the water far below on either side.

The wind whipped through the second level of the five-level, platform-style garage as both women stared at each other.

"I won't let you leave," Jaina said. She had been out of the loop for over seven months while she had rescued her brother, but before she had left, she had been filled in on what was going on. "You have a lot of things to answer for. Answers the galaxy needs to hear."

Sanson slowly took a step backward, towards the transport. "Uh, uh," Jaina said, and with a motion to the machine, the transport shut down. "I won't let you get away. Now put down the blaster and tell your husband to get out of the transport."

Sanson looked around desperately. She was standing about three meters from the edge of the garage, and could see the rolling ocean far below. It churned Sanson's stomach to think about it, but she knew of only one way out of this situation. She looked back at Jaina with a determined face.

Jaina braced herself, knowing the admiral was going to try something. "Promise me one thing," Sanson said slowly as she took another step backward and closer to the edge. "Promise me you will take care of him."

"Take care of who?" Jaina asked, but before she had time to think about it, Sanson, going against every maternal instinct she had ever acquired, heaved her son out over the edge of the platform. "What?!" Jaina screamed, not believing what she had just seen.

Jaina turned to look and Sanson and saw a look of pure horror on her face. The young woman forgot about everything else at that moment and ran toward the edge after the falling baby. Without thinking it through, Jaina dove off the edge of the permacrete platform and out over the cold ocean almost 300 meters below.

If Jaina had tried hard to slow her and Eran down when they had jumped off the cliff a few minutes ago, she redoubled those efforts to speed her descent as she chased the screaming form of the baby. Jaina caught the baby and barely had time to rotate her body underneath the fragile child before they hit the water with a terrific force.

Jaina's whole left side was numb from the impact and she nearly let go her lungfull of air. Then she remembered the baby. It would surely drown in this water. Jaina looked at the child's face as she kicked hard for the surface. David had a look of horror on his face, but Jaina could see that his mouth was securely closed and his cheeks puffed out. The young woman could not believe it, but this infant was actually holding his breath.

Jaina did not want to push the baby's luck and filled herself with the Force, willing herself back to the surface of the water. They broke through the waves and both took a deep breath of air. David followed his breath with the loudest wails he had ever released since birth. Jaina could hardly blame the child and could do little to comfort him as they bobbed in the water 50 meters from shore.

Above them, Jaina watched as the transport sped out over the ocean and to freedom. Jaina could not believe they were going to get away. Five of the most powerful people the New Rebellion had to offer had chased down the aging couple, and the couple had won.

Jaina was about to give up hope, when she felt her brother's presence. She kept looking up and saw Jacen peering down at her. He was standing in the corner of the garage from which Jaina had just jumped and the Imperial couple had just left.

"I'm fine," Jaina yelled up at him. "You need to stop them," Jaina added, her arm emerging from the water to point after the transport.

Jacen nodded and backed a good distance away from the edge of the garage. He took out one of his lightsabers, took a deep breath, and ran full force toward the edge of the parking platform. He hurled the weapon out after the transport with incredible strength. Jacen guided the weapon through the Force and ignited it at just the right time.

The garage was on the side of a cove, 1500 meters across, with the open sea to the right. Snotzenexer had been steering the transport in that direction before the lightsaber tore through the rear of his craft. The transport veered sharply back to the left and down. Jacen watched as it was now headed for the opposite side of the bay, where another man-made cliff rose high in the air.

The small transport was going well over 150 kilometers an hour when it skipped off the waves the first time. It skipped a few more times before submerging completely beneath the water, only 200 meters from the cliff. Jacen waited for the inevitable crash and watched as a huge plume of water and smoke rose in the air right at the cliff face.

Jacen slumped against one of the dozen support pillars that held up the parking platforms. He had only wanted to disable the craft. Instead he had sent it to a water grave. Looking down at his sister, Jacen saw she was making her way to shore. He would have to help her levitate up the cliff face, but he was just glad she was safe. Jacen looked back at the distant cliff wall and could see tiny bits of wreckage floating to the surface. No one could have survived.

Chapter 24 "Picking Up the Pieces"

"Good evening, viewers and welcome to 'The Story Behind the Story.' I am your host, Warren Payne.

"The events of the past few days have turned the galaxy upside-down and will be remembered for many a millennia as a critical turning point for our civilization. Alexander Snotzenexer, an Imperial officer, pulls the bantha hide over everyone's eyes as he rises to power, committing one heinous crime after another until he is the most powerful man in the galaxy.

"We all know the story, and we all know how it ends. Chased by five brave individuals, striving to bring the guilty man to justice and find some reason for his madness, former President Snotzenexer and his wife are killed as their disabled transport crashes into the side of an ocean cliff.

"What most of us don't know is 'The Story Behind the Story.'

"In the studio with us today is Borrel Curtis, director and recently promoted producer at the Torenick Broadcast Company. It's good of you to be here, Borrel."

"The pleasure is mine, Warren, and thanks for having me."

"Now, Borrel, you didn't always work for the TBC, did you?"

"No, up till about eight months ago I worked as a senior producer at the Porylen Entertainment Network."

"And what ended your employment at PEN?"

"The main headquarters in Caristic, the capitol city on Porylen, was destroyed by what was believed to be a terrorist bombing."

"Yes I think I remember that. Didn't Snotzenexer cash in on your old company just a few days before the explosion."

"Just hours before, actually."

"Is that when you first started to suspect the then bank president of foul play?"

"No. I got my first hint that something wrong was going on when I reviewed some of the tapes from a holo film I was making in the Varion asteroid field."

"I can't wait to get to that, but first we half to take a short break. You are watching 'The Story Behind the Story' on CHC. We'll be right back."

Han turned down the volume on the holo-viewer as the commercials began their annoying whine. He was sitting on a couch in the presidential suite inside the Coruscant palace. Only a few days earlier, this suite had belonged to Snotzenexer and Sanson, but Han did not think they would be putting up much of a fuss about it.

Han really did not want to stay on Coruscant too much longer. He understood that the Republic was in a very delicate state right now, and they could not just leave it alone, hoping someone else would fix it. Han just was not looking forward to starting over. Leia had been near resigning her position has head of the government when Snotzenexer had thrown her out anyway, but now she would have to stay until things got put back together. Han had no idea how long that would be.

The show was back on now, but Han kept the volume low as he watched the freeze frame of the disappearing asteroids. The galaxy had definitely changed, and while Han knew a few of changes were very positive, he also felt some things would never get better.

The Jedi were well respected again, if not worshipped. Almost 30 years ago, when the original rebellion had taken down the Empire, they had done so with the help of one Jedi, Luke, and most of his work had been done behind the scenes. Now, with Luke's very early accusations against Snotzenexer, which had gotten him sent to Hoth, and Jacen and Jaina's more recent attacks against the evil president, the public had seen the Jedi fighting for them and fighting on the right side.

The work to rebuild the Academy had been embraced almost over night and construction companies were making large donations of people, material, and expertise. Luke had been cleared of any wrong doings that had sentenced him to Hoth and Han's children were being celebrated like heroes.

Among the good changes, there were also very disturbing ones. Several dozen planets had left the Republic, saying that no government should be all encompassing. After the fact, Snotzenexer's grip on the galaxy had been dissected by every talk show within a thousand light-years. Everyone realized that he had been so powerful because everyone had joined the Republic with no questions asked. Once they were in the Republic, they were dependent on Snotzenexer for everything.

Now these breakaway planets were forming their own smaller governments, complete with their own military. Republic ships were stationed all over the galaxy, and many of these ships were claimed by the new factions, seeing as how the ships were maintained, staffed, and often built, by the locals.

Han could envision many different conflicts emerging between these new factions. He did not think they would fight the Republic, but they would definitely fight between themselves. Things like tariffs, immigration rights, military zones, and countless other things had already come up, only a few days after Snotzenexer had left office.

The Trade Federation was still intact, though it was now called the Trade Organization. Most of the new factions rejected it, and created their own. In time, Han knew, the leaders of these new governments would have to accept the Trade Organization or be ready to loose a lot of money. Ghent had taken charge of the Organization, and after talking with Lando, Derran, and several other opinionated businessmen, he had removed all of the wasted money, making life as a trader very profitable.

"The Story Behind the Story" was coming back from its second commercial break, and Han turned the volume back up.

"In case you are just joining us, Borrel Curtis is our guest today. Now Borrel, how did you get involved with the New Rebellion? Didn't you have apprehensions about trying to take down someone as deeply entrenched and adored as Snotzenexer?"

"I did at first, but after talking with the leaders of the rebellion, I understood that I had to help. I was shocked, as I'm sure most of your viewers were, when I found out about all of the atrocities our president was responsible."

"It was hard to believe."

"I don't believe it!!!"

Han spun around, as the last shout had not come from the holo-program. Leia stormed into the suite, hurling a datapad across the room. Han quickly turned off the holo-viewer and rose to calm his wife.

"I just can't believe how stupid some people are!" Leia turned to see her husband walking toward her, as if recognizing his presence in the room for the first time. "Han, there are still some people out there who are pro-Imperial. After all we've been through they still want an emperor."

This was not news to Han, but unlike his wife, he had already thought it through. "And who do they want to make emperor?" he asked.

"That's not the point," she countered. "It's the whole idea of wanting an Imperial government that-"

"Who do they want to make emperor?" Han asked again, his voice soothing.

"Me," Leia responded meekly, conceding the point.

"And what is so wrong with that?"

Leia raised her voice again, trying to prove she was not wrong. "But only as a temporary fix to the problem. I don't really want the job anyway. They will look around and find some other 'Snotzenexer' to replace me, and when they do-"

"They're going to find someone else who killed billions of people by raining asteroids on an inhabited system?" Han asked. Leia did not respond. "Or maybe they will find someone who blew up his own bank, killing hundreds just so he could force a merger. Or perhaps there is someone out there who destroyed a mining corporation to throw the galaxy in financial turmoil who is just perfect for the job."

"Okay, dear," Leia said, a slight smile creeping through her scowl, "you've made your point."

"I don't think so," Han said. "My point isn't that they aren't going to find another 'Snotzenexer' out there. My real point is that there is no more Empire. The word 'imperial' is just a word to describe a type of government, and is not evil in and of itself. I'm not trying to justify any Imperial warlords that might happen to still be roaming around the rim, but I am saying that these new pro-imperial senators you are fighting with are only agreeing with a style of government, and not with Palpatine himself."

Leia nodded her head, glad her husband had taken the time care about her troubles. "I guess you're right, but that word still sends shivers down my back."

"So how many pro-IMPERIAL senators are there?" Han asked, taking pleasure in being able to give his wife shivers.

"Very few, actually," Leia admitted. "There are still only about 100 replacement senators, and with all the new factions starting, many new worlds are waiting to see if sending a new senator to Coruscant is worth the trouble. My guess is that many of the worlds will remain independent until either one or two factions rise above the rest, or until the Republic can prove itself the better choice."

"It doesn't seem important to declare allegiance right now," Han agreed, "but once the fighting starts - and trust me, it will start - I think you will see people joining the Republic in droves."

Wedge had declined his old position, giving the honors to Perry Tremon, and Admiral Tremon's first action as military head had been to recall all of the hundreds of capitol ships that were stationed across the galaxy. Not all of the ships responded, claiming allegiance with a local faction. That was an act of treason, but Perry had wisely withheld military retribution for now.

The move had been the result of a few things. Snotzenexer had initiated a meager system of taxation, and that system stayed in place as the rebels took over. All of the factioned worlds obviously refused to pay, but so did many of the worlds that had not yet provided senators. Their reasoning was that taxation without representation was unfair. Perry agreed, and withdrew their military protection on the basis that without taxation, there was no funding to support it. This inspired a few worlds to send senators, but most did not see the need for military protection and maintained their neutrality.

Perry now had close to 150 capitol ships patrolling about two sectors. All of the planets near Coruscant had sent senators, and they all benefited from the great trade and over protection. The new, much smaller, yet stronger, Republic was the model of efficiency. It had way too many trade ships and way too many military ships. It also had way too much money, for Sandie Hollins had managed to recover most of Snotzenexer's illegal holdings and returned them to their proper accounts.

The Varion system had also remained with the Republic, and even though it was not near Coruscant, and was surrounded by factioned worlds, the system prospered. President Loyran had put forth an effort to rebuild the home office of the VIB on Iom on one condition: he wanted to become co-president with Sandie. Sandie had agreed to share the position with the man, and most people who knew the couple understood that they would be sharing a great many other things in the months to come.

Han had no idea why more people did not sign up to the Republic. He guessed that after your trust had been violated so violently like it had with Snotzenexer, it was hard to trust again, especially this soon, and with everything looking the same. Han laughed at the idea of how the new government had been able to keep all of Snotzenexer's programs and improvements. In a sick way, it was good that Snotzenexer had been in power. He had made some very honest improvements.

Han compared the situation to that of Jacen. His son was in better shape and had a clearer mind than Han had ever thought possible. In order to get that way, he had to die violently, spend several months as a nothing floating in a nowhere, come back from the dead, and do battle with the resurrected Emperor. Like Snotzenexer's terrible crimes, it was not the best way to achieve perfection, but now that it was over, Han could see the good that came out of it.

Leia was also beginning to see the good of it. She was struggling with the new senators, most of which had never held a political position before, but after this mess got sorted out, the Republic would nearly be able to run itself, thanks in large part to Snotzenexer.

"I hope you're right," Leia said to Han's last comment. "I hope you're right about the worlds joining and not about the fighting."

"The one will lead to the other, dear," Han said, "you have to have both."

Leia shrugged, not really wanting to talk about it right now. Instead she walked over to where Han had been sitting and flipped the holo-viewer back on. Ten minutes later she was fast asleep.

***

Jon struggled as he slowly moved one foot in front of the other, almost all of his weight resting on the two parallel bars that his hands had in a death grip. Jon tried to ease a bit more weight on his legs, and his knee buckled and the bars collided painfully with his armpits for the sixth time that day.

It was hard for Vince and Bep to see their friend like this, but they knew he needed their support and not their sympathy. Angelic and Angelina, two Jedi twins who had fought against the Empire several time already in their young lives, stood by also, helping Jon with the Force. The two girls had not been the ones who had done the original healing on Jon, but after Luke had repaired the severed nerve in the pilot's back, he had shown the twins how to help Jon strengthen his legs.

"You can do it," Angelic said. She had taken a particular interest in the tall pilot.

Vince and Bep had trained the two Jedi - or at least had tried to - to fly the V-38's, but neither girl had picked it up very well until Luke had guided them in the final battle. Angelina had not liked the battle, but Angelic had thoroughly enjoyed the experience. 

Angelic was used to everything being easy for her. Like Jacen and Jaina, who excelled in different aspects of the Force, Angelic and Angelina had different strengths as well. Angelina loved nature and life, which was one of the reasons she was chosen by Luke to help with the injured. Angelic loved machines, and the fighter she had flown had really peeked her interest, which was why she had volunteered to help her sister with Jon.

It amazed Angelic that someone with no Force ability at all could fly a ship as well as she had seen Jon fly. She was used to understanding new machinery so completely, that it had frustrated her to no end when flying a fighter had not proved to be simple. She could fly loops around most cadets, and she could shoot incredibly small targets without any help from her targeting computer. She just could not do both at the same time, and she could do neither half as well as Jon.

"Come on, Jon," she continued to encourage him. "You can do it."

Jon smiled at the cute young Jedi and struggled to push himself back up. His arms were too fatigued for the task, and he fell. Angelic was there to catch him with arms that should have been far too small to support the tall pilot. Instead she easily helped him back to his repulsar chair.

Vince and Bep tried not to laugh out loud at the special treatment Jon was getting from the female Jedi, though inwardly, they wished they were the ones who were injured. That was not a common wish on Yavin IV right now.

The forest moon had become a very large hospital for the many that had been injured during the last fight with the Empire. There were at least a dozen freighter pilots who had suffered bad injuries during the fight with Sanson's fleet. There were also a few VCY pilots who were in need of aid.

Ra'tok had his head wrapped in a thick bandage and underwent daily Jedi healings as an older student worked to close a bad cut on his back where the I-beam had struck him. Mara was easily the worst off of any. Her broken leg had been set in a cast, and her severely sprained ankle was wrapped tightly. She spent her days in a wheel chair, refusing any special treatment from the students.

Luke recognized the stubbornness in the woman all too well. She had been that way ever since he had met her, and she would be that way till she died. Luke knew that either he or Anakin could spend ten minutes working on her with the Force and be able to reduce her days of immobility by three-fourths, but Mara would hear nothing of it. She would heal herself, or never walk again.

To Mara's credit, she was doing a good job for having never been trained in the use of the Force as a healing agent, but she had a long way to go. If she would not let Luke heal her, the Jedi Master had suggested that she at least let him show her how she could do it on her own. She had refused. Luke had not pressed the point.

If Mara was suffering from the heaviest injuries, Eran easily had the lightest, though the way he limped around and moaned, you'd think his leg was ready to fall off. Jaina watched the display through tight lips, trying desperately not to be entertained by the spectacle. She knew that was what Eran wanted, but it was really hard to deny him.

"I'm telling you," he complained to Jaina, limping on his right leg, "I got hit by a really big rock right here." He pointed to his right thigh and winced as his finger barely touched the fabric of his pants. "It's a really deep thigh bruise, and I think it needs attention."

"Why don't you ask Jacen," Jaina responded.

Eran blanched at the idea. He still did not feel comfortable around the powerful Jedi, and Jaina knew this. Though Jacen had been nothing but friendly toward Eran, you just couldn't look at someone the same way once you've killed him.

"He's busy," Eran lied, wincing as he took another step. "Couldn't you at least look at it?"

Jaina had already examined it from a distance with the Force and knew his thigh, and every other part of his body, was fine. She shrugged her shoulders and walked over to the flirt. Eran held his right leg out for Jaina, raised and slightly bent. "It's right here," Eran pointed high on his thigh.

"Here?" Jaina asked, placing her hand barely above Eran's knee.

"No, higher."

Jaina moved her hand up almost imperceptibly. "Here?"

"No," Eran grew frustrated at Jaina's unwillingness to play his game, "much higher."

Jaina placed her hand on Eran's right shoulder. "Here?"

"Not that high," Eran said, though with Jaina's hand on her shoulder, the two were looking at each other in the eye and both were a bit distracted.

The two looked at each other, their faces only a few centimeters apart. "I have a very complicated family," Jaina said out of the blue. "You might not want to get involved."

"How complicated can it be?"

"I only know who one of my grandparents were, and that was Darth Vader. My mother is the acting president of the Republic. My father was one the Republic's greatest generals ever. My uncle is widely held to be the most powerful individual in the galaxy. My younger brother is the strongest Force talent in decades, and my brother is probably the best swordsman ever."

"He's not that good," Eran jested.

"Oh really," Jaina smiled, "why don't you tell him that."

Eran swallowed hard at the thought, but another thought crossed his mind. "Did I ever tell you what my real last name is?" Jaina shook her head. "I should fit right in. Now about my bruise."

"It's lower, right," Jaina replied. She took her hand off his shoulder and punched him swiftly in the gut. "Is that low enough?"

The punch had been very slight, barely more than a shove, but with a little help from the Force, Jaina sent Eran scrambling back. The would-be boyfriend took several steps back, all signs of a limp gone, and fell on his back.

"There," Jaina declared, "I cured your limp. All I had to do was redirect the pain."

"My doctor," Eran said as he sat up and brushed himself off.

Jaina walked over to him and helped him back to his feet. Eran did away with the fake limp as they made their way back to the dormitories. "So what is your last name?"

Eran smiled. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

***

The night on Yavin IV was very serene. The Jedi students were at peace for the first time in months, and the surrounding wildlife appreciated the supernatural calm that resulted in it. Everyone was finally asleep, dreaming of a very promising future. Everyone was asleep except one - well, two actually.

Jaina tried to rock the crying baby to sleep but was not very successful in the task. David Snotzenexer was not crying loudly, but he was not sleeping either. Jaina had unofficially adopted the infant after rescuing him from certain death at the hands of - of all people - his mother.

Jaina had no idea how Sanson had been able to throw her only child off a cliff. If she had not really loved the child, why had she taken him with her when she and her husband had fled? Surely the child had slowed them down, and they probably would have left in the transport long before the five pursuers had ever even made it to the cliff if they had left the infant behind.

David finally started to tire of his sobbing, and began to drift off to sleep. As Jaina watched the young boy, not even two months old, she could not believe how mature he acted. He rarely cried, except at night when he missed his mother. He played with toys that should have been beyond his comprehension and did not play with dangerous objects that a normal child would gravitate toward.

Even without his actions, Jaina could feel the clarity in his mind. The baby was not Force sensitive, but he was the closest thing to it Jaina had ever seen. Often when she looked into David's hazel eyes, she felt that the baby somehow saw more than normal. Almost like he was discerning people's temperaments or could tell what they were thinking.

The baby was just falling asleep and Jaina was preparing to place him back in his cradle, when a movement in Jaina's doorway startled her. Jaina stood up and looked at her visitor on this quiet night. Jill Sanson stood just inside Jaina's room.

Jaina had no idea what to say. The admiral looked very miserable. Her left arm was in a sling, a bandage covered her left eye, and Jaina could see some type of wrap under her right pant leg. After watching Eran hobble around all day, Jaina could tell that Sanson's injuries were genuine. Of course the thing that stood out most about the woman was that just outside of the sling on her left arm, her hand was holding a thermal detonator.

Jaina knew that this device was already activated and if Sanson dropped it or if Jaina tried to remove it from her hand, it would go off. Jaina reached out to the device to try and disarm it, but found a very confusing jumble of wires inside the small device. Jaina thought that there must be at least a dozen kilometers of wire wrapped up inside the outer shell. Jaina could never trace the lines of current to know which way the power was flowing or which was the detonation wire. She doubted her younger brother would be able to solve the puzzle in less than an hour.

"What do you want?" Jaina asked, though holding David in her arms, the question seemed ludicrous.

"You have someone that belongs to me," Sanson replied, her voice sounding very scratchy. On top of her injuries, she had a very bad cold. Taking a bath in one of Coruscant's oceans could do that to you.

"But you threw him off of th-"

"Only because I knew without a shadow of a doubt that you would save him," Sanson interrupted. "I knew that you would save him and that I would be able to return for him."

"But you could have died," Jaina argued.

"And if I hadn't turned my son over to you, he would have died for sure."

"Your husband?" Jaina asked.

Sanson did not respond vocally, but Jaina felt she knew the answer: all this woman had left now was her son.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't wake my uncle and have you arrested," Jaina demanded.

"Because if you do, I'll drop this detonator and all three of us, and maybe a few others, will join my husband."

"You would kill your son?" Jaina did not believe her.

"If we can not be together, I, and he, might as well be dead. I hope that you can tell with your Force skills that I am not bluffing." Jaina could. "Now I thank you for saving my son and taking care of him while I was gone, but I ask that you please return him to me."

Jaina hesitated. The woman in front of her was just as guilty of mass murder as her husband had been. Jaina could not just hand over her son without thinking of some way to detain the woman.

"What would you do?" Sanson asked, seeing Jaina's apprehension. "Would you have me executed for my crimes? Or maybe you would find sweet revenge in exiling me to Hoth. You have your government back. Will punishing me bring back one life that was lost?

"I know you think that I am some evil creature not capable of love. But I am not that much different than you. Did you ever think about all the people your uncle killed when he took out the first Death Star? How do you justify that? Your own father could have very easily been on that battle station if he had not dropped out of the Imperial Navy less than a year before.

"We were at war then and now. Alex and I felt we had to do what we did. You forget that 30 years ago you overthrew our government with an illegal rebellion. In our eyes, you were just as guilty of the crimes that you accuse me of. Maybe we shouldn't have attacked the Denorid system. Maybe some of our other moves could have been made without as much bloodshed, but we were at war and did not contemplate our actions beyond how they would aid our victory. There are no rules in war no matter what anyone might say."

Sanson ended her exposition, waiting for Jaina to respond.

"You know your child is special," Jaina responded.

"Is he Force sensitive?" Sanson asked, a twinge of worry creeping into her voice.

Jaina recognized the worry for what it was and almost thought of lying. Instead she shook her head. "No, but he has the potential for very incredible genius."

"Just like his father." Sanson smiled, and Jaina lost all hesitation. The smile lit up the mother's face so perfectly, that Sanson looked like a different person.

Jaina walked toward the Imperial Admiral and saw that she was wearing a baby carrier that had been patched up. Jaina placed David in the cloth backpack carefully, not wanting to wake the sleeping child. The infant looked very placid sleeping on his mother's back, and Sanson's smile remained. "Thank-you."

"I will not chase you," Jaina said as she stepped away from the still armed woman. "I do not believe that any here, when I tell them what happened tonight, will chase you either. We can forgive, but we won't forget. If you or your son ever threaten the stability or peace of this universe again, you will feel our justice."

Sanson did not reply and turned to leave, having gotten what she had come for. Jaina watched the woman go, wondering if she was doing the right thing. She decided it would have been much worse to keep the child from knowing his mother, despite the fact that Jaina thought his mother a monster.

Sanson was not a monster. While Jaina did not agree with Sanson's statement that the Imperials were not so different from the Rebels, she realized that both sides could love and both sides could hate. While Sanson had committed terrible crimes, Jaina could tell this woman no longer posed a threat to anyone. Jaina remembered how Sanson's face had lit up with delight as David had been given back to her. With that image in her mind, Jaina went to bed and slept soundly.

THE END

There, it's over, finally, I think.

I'd like to thank anyone who made it this far and apologize once again for taking so long to finish it. I don't think I will ever write another novel length story again (unless someone is paying me). It is a lot more work than most people realize. I often wonder why I do it. Why do I work so hard at it when there is very little reward? The only reason I've been able to come with is that I enjoy it. It's a hobby, and I love the SW universe. I go back often to read some of my older stories and still find them entertaining. A lot of people have asked me to beta-read their stories, but most of these requests never make it past the first few chapters. Liking Star Wars isn't a good enough reason to sit down and try and write a 200+ page story – you have to enjoy writing also. More than enjoying writing, I think I enjoy story telling. There is something about weaving a story line with only a vague idea of where it's going to go. I lay up at night for hours thinking about different endings or whether I should kill a character. It's just something I like.

Now everyone wants to know if Snotzenexer is really dead. I think he is, but I'm not positive. But you will say, "Dave, you're the author, you have to know what happened." If you've ever written a story you really care about, you'll understand me when I say that just because I'm the author doesn't mean I'm in control. 

Let me tell you what I know for sure. I know that as their transport went under water, Sanson was able to jump out. The ensuing explosion left her disoriented, and only by grabbing onto a piece of floating debris was she able to survive. When she came to her senses, she found herself floating amidst a huge section of scaffolding that used to support the planet's biggest dock network. Now it was just a bunch of corroded metal pipes and support cables. She climbed to the surface and looked for her husband. When she didn't find him, she wandered around Coruscant, stole some money, got some medical attention, and flew back to Iom. There she got more money and equipment. Then she went to Yavin IV.

Now, was Snotzenexer able to get out of the transport in the few short seconds before the crash? Maybe. I really don't know. Sanson doesn't think he did, and she would know better than I would. When people wrote me to ask for the final installment, they begged that I not kill Snotzenexer. They said he was too good a character to let him die. I'm sure everyone who watched ROTJ for the first time (and every time after) cheered when Vader threw the Emperor down the elevator shaft. And maybe when you watched the end of TPM, you weren't happy that Darth Maul died, but only because you wanted him to hang around so he could die in the next movie. I don't know what it is about some bad guys that make people hate them or love them. I imagine that if I had fielded a vote, people would have said, "To the Maw with Sanson. We want Snotzenexer to live."

So why did I do what I did? I already told you: I don't know. This story just kind of wrote itself at the end. Even as the transport was skipping on the water, I didn't know who was going to live and who was going to die. I didn't decide until Sanson walked into Jaina's room, and I'm still not sure Snotzenexer didn't escape the sharks. I guess we'll never know.

At the end of "The Dark Ring" I said I would not continue the story and anyone who wanted to should feel free to continue the story with my characters. I honestly did not think anyone would take me up on that offer, but someone actually did. Now, I have a feeling there might be a few more people who might want to pick it up where I left off. I did sort of set the universe up for another series, but I have no intention of writing it. From now on I think I'm going to stick to shorter stories like "Diamonds are Forever" and "The Game." I want to expand on the other Solo children too, not just focussing on Jacen.

Thank-you again. As always, your questions, concerns, and comments are always appreciated. This is me signing off.

   [1]: mailto:dpontier@hotmail.com
   [2]: http://www.geocities.com/piqsid/stories.html



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